Take Cover
by Gennerator
Summary: Lydia assumed if he had stayed away for a year, he was never coming back.  She assumed wrong.  How long can she hide her problems from a poltergeist?  BeetlejuicexLydia, movieverse.
1. Prologue

Um. Why did I post this even though I haven't finished MLO? Because I'm a bad person. Eh.

So, I wanted to try my hand at the whole tie between movie and cartoon version thing. Yeah, it's impossible. So sue me, it's fun. And I really like the idea of Lydia and Beetlejuice going from enemies to best buds – it's cute. Admit it. And I love Lydia. She's just so...Lydia. She and Beetlejuice go well together, huh?

Disclaimer: I don't own Beetlejuice or its characters.

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One year.

He had been gone for an entire year, and she could finally assume he wasn't coming back. She would never, ever have to see him again. He would never terrorize her family.

She could breathe again.

Lydia didn't know why the looming anniversary of her almost-marriage mattered so much. She didn't know anything about the Neitherworld's bureaucracy – he could still be there, waiting. Or he could have just decided she wasn't worth his time...she doubted it, though.

It just seemed like the kind of thing he would _do_ – suddenly pop into her life, laughing his _I'msocrazy_ laugh. _Happy anniversary, you bitch! _And she would scream like a banshee, but no one would hear...and when he was finished with her he would go after Barbara and Adam, and maybe her parents for good measure. He had liked dramatics...and what better way to be ironic than to kill her on their (not) anniversary?

What worse way to die than by the hands of someone you thought was gone, listening to his stupid, morbidly terrifying jokes?

But it was over. Everything was over. Logic didn't have any business here, not where he was involved. And certainly not where she didn't want it.

It was the day after their anniversary. Her life was finally right side up.

One week before he came back, and flipped it right the hell back over.


	2. In Which Lydia has a Visitor

Two days later Lydia cried. She was trying not to, and she hated herself for it, but she was, and she couldn't seem to stop. That was how things usually went for her...the moment something occurred to her she went and did it, usually against her better judgement.

Barbara was beside her in a second, concerned mother that she was. "Oh, Lydia, sweetie, don't cry. You'll see us again..."

_When I'm dead_, she thought brokenly. _And who else will I see then? _But she didn't say this out loud, because it sounded petulant even in her head, like she was trying to convince them to stay. Which she wasn't, she reminded herself. They were fine with living inside a house with her being the only person they ever saw beside each other, but to be happy they had to go. And they would never consider taking her with them...Lydia wasn't sure she would, anymore, either.

Adam's heavy hand squeezed her shoulder which, if anything, made her cry harder. They were really _leaving her_.

"We can probably find some way to visit, don't worry." Adam was more awkward with the whole comforting thing, but he loved her too, so he tried.

"I just..." Her voice was muffled by Barbara's shirt. "I'm just so used to you being here..."

Barbara smiled at this, and Adam smiled too. Lydia tried to make herself smile, for them. If they found what she had said amusing...well, she would let them be amused. Anything was better than this wrenching misery, like her own parents were being taken away from her.

"Oh, Lydia, we'll miss you too," Barbara said, and Adam nodded.

_I'll miss you more...you have each other. _She looked at her shoes, ashamed of herself. They needed this. _She_ needed this, in some stupid way that was determined to fuck her life up_. I certainly don't _want_ it._

She heard Adam murmuring in Barbara's ear. _Gotta go. _She clung tighter.

"Lydia...Lydia, we have to leave now..." Barbara gently disentangled the girl from her.

Lydia forced herself not to run back to them. "I...okay...sorry, crying and everything..."

"Don't be," Adam said quickly. "I meant it Lydia, we'll visit."

"...you promise?" She sounded more like a lost child than anything. She would be mortified later, but not now.

"Of course."

They started to fade out of sight. "We love you."

Lydia made herself watch as they left. She made herself be quiet. She didn't want their last memory of her to be the blubbering, sobbing girl she was now. And when they were completely gone, she truly broke down, collapsing onto the floor. She cried, all alone in the attic.

--

Her parents were worried about her. So were her teachers, but today was the first day of Winter Break, so she wouldn't have to deal with that for a while. She was worried about herself, come to think of it. She couldn't remember ever feeling this bad.

She sat on her bed, staring at her lavender bedspread, musing. Maybe she should make an effort. Her grades, so meticulously improved, were dropping, and she wasn't really eating much. Adam would be concerned, Barbara angry. They might even be able to see her, actually. All the more reason to get the hell out of bed...

It was a nice day, crisp and cool and snowy. That was appropriate, she supposed. Motivational, even. She could hear Christmas music from a radio downstairs.

She sighed and braced herself to finally come alive on this nice day.

At least, it was a nice day until a huge gust of wind ripped through her room and knocked her off her bed, and her vanity burst into flames.

"You fucking _bitch_!"

--

Of course, she screamed. Her head slammed into the wall and she couldn't think coherently for a few seconds, but she didn't need to think to be terrified. Big wind fire oh God! _Shriek._

"Shut UP! Gawd, what happened to 'I'm not afraid of you' an' all that shit? Don't piss yourself, fuck."

She stopped, horrified. Her eyes darted wildly around, trying to ignore the crazed little diddy running through her head. _Itshimitshimitshimitshimohnononohesgonnakillme_. Where was the voice coming from? _It isn't him it can't be him I am so dead crap_. She had to focus on something else, or she would be driven insane.

Fire. Fire burned.

Oh God, her vanity.

"Stop it!" She yelled desperately, trying to find the strength to stand.

She was answered with derisive, angry laughter. "You'll have to do better than that, babes."

The nickname immediately had alarm bells ringing, but she dismissed them. Couldn't think about that. Not now, at least. Later, when her grip on reality was more tenacious. Fire, think about the fire. She had to put the fire out. She tried to stand a second time.

She couldn't move.

Panic gripped her, vicelike and suffocating. She couldn't move. She couldn't run if she couldn't move. She strained, tendons bulging with the exertion. Nothing happened. _Nothing happened. _It was like a dream, where she was running but couldn't run fast enough...what she wouldn't give to be able to _walk_.

The fire spread, oozing its way down the side of her vanity and spilling onto her carpet. How long would it take for it to reach her? _If I'm alive by then_...Smoke drifted in thick streams to her ceiling, and flashes of jade glinted at her from her mirror. Would she rather suffocate or be burned alive?

She sucked in a mouthful of air and gagged. She closed her eyes, wishing she could pull her shirt collar over her nose. Death. Dead. She was going to die. He was really going to kill her. He wouldn't kill her, would he? Her lungs burned, and she spent a bewildered second trying to figure out if they hurt because she was breathing smoke, or because she was holding her breath.

"Say my name..." the voice purred, low and rough.

_Not unless you say mine first_, she thought muzzily, and almost giggled. "Make me!" She forced out, eyes streaming.

The fire licked at the end of her bed, climbed up the walls. The whole time, she lay prone on the ground, crying for reasons she wasn't really sure of. Did the smoke burn? What an utterly pathetic way to die. "Stop..."

"No really, kid, say it." His voice had an edge to it. "I can't stop the fire unless you let me out."

He was lying. He was lying so he could come out and kill her. Was doing it indirectly not good enough for him? Anger flashed through her, sudden and hot. Hotter than the fire, fire burned. Sssmoke.

"_Lydia! _Do you want to die?"

_Not really..._

"Beetle...juicebeetlejuicebeetlejuice. If you kill me I swear to...God...not funny..."

And then there was laughter and another gust of wind and she was being lifted, and she was gone.

--

He burst from her mirror in the wake of a miniature version of a full-blown twister, screaming his rapture in tones of laughter no human's vocal chords could duplicate. The smoke was blown clear away in the face of this new, stronger wind. His luminescent green eyes immediately spotted the dark little girl lying in the corner, still. She must have passed out. Fire was getting awfully close to her. Couldn't have that.

Beetlejuice swooped down and scooped her up, awkwardly cradling her to his chest with one arm while the other waved in somewhat lazy circles. The fire diminished, and eventually disappeared completely. Easy, when he wasn't trapped in a damn mirror.

Her room was singed, her vanity destroyed. Couldn't have that either. If her parents saw, and they told Adam and...that other one, the one who inadvertedly ate him, and they told Juno... A flick of his wrist and the room restored itself. He flexed his fingers, grinning crazily. So nice to finally be himself again.

He took a moment to look down at the girl in his arms. Her head lolled back limply, mouth open. He snorted.

Plop, onto the newly refurbished bed she went. Bounce, one, two. She didn't move, arms and legs all akimbo. He stared.

Well fuck. He'd killed her.

"'m such a dumbass..." Probably he should have thought this out better. Starting the fire had been easy, just a little spark and her highly flammable furniture polish had done the rest. Rendering her immobile had been easy, too. Her fear, especially of him, was like a potent energy source, easily harnessed and put to work. Undoing these things was another matter entirely...He had thought she would have called him out much sooner than she had.

Her chest (almost completely flat, he noted with vindictive, if not childish, satisfaction) heaved slowly up and down. Not dead. Maybe he should...reposition her, or something. She was gonna be all sore when she woke up.

Then again, maybe not, he thought, turning away.

He was Out. _Fucking finally_. A year in a plastic goddamn chair, with nothing to do but fucking hate the fucking girl who was currently sleeping.

"Could kill ya," he mused, looking down at her and raising his eyebrows. "Nice and painless, you bein' asleep and all..."

_Unconscious_, he corrected himself. Well, even better. He wasn't the kind of person to torture little girls...adults who deserved it, maybe, but that was something else entirely.

Not that she didn't deserve it, little bitch. His lips curled back over his pointed teeth. He had been _so fucking close _to being Out, Free, forever. He hadn't really been in a hurry to leave the Neitherworld behind, he had just wanted out of that damn model. Juno had picked wisely on that particular punishment. The old hag.

Well, he was Out now, and he could keep Lydia terrified long enough to come up with a plan. _Or he could just kill her_. God knew he wanted to. He had fantasized about it, even. What else could he do for an entire year? Torture was a nice option. Not the physical kind, that was below the belt even for him, but little things. Flickering lights, moving objects...just cheeky little reminders that he knew where she was, he was watching her, and there was nothing she could do to protect herself. Then when he had her nice and worried he would find some way for her to release him, and finish it.

Of course, he had botched everything by flying into a fury the second Juno let him loose. He hadn't thought about it. He had just _done_.

He really hadn't meant to burn her alive, though. That was her fault. Stubborn bitch.

He looked at her again. She was thinner than the last time he'd seen her, and taller. Weird, how people who weren't dead were always changing. She had ditched the spiky-bangs look, opting instead for longer, more natural looking ones. She wasn't wearing any makeup, either. _Good._ She was too young for that crap, anyway.

_If I killed her? _Wouldn't work, he realized with a sinking feeling. If Adam and whatsername or her parents found her dead little body they would know...even if he made it look natural they would know. They would say it, even if they were just suspicious, they would say it, and he would get sucked back In. He could kill all of them, but that would be somewhat hard, exorcisms had always been tricky for him. And that was a lot of people to be killing.

He wouldn't mind so much with the woman though, crazy worm lady that she was.

And he would definitely get in trouble with Juno. Lydia was one thing, three deaths and two exorcisms was another. She would find a way to put him back and he would be back where he started, without anyone to call him Out.

When it came down to it, it was all up to Lydia's cooperation.

Well, fuck.

--

Lydia woke up with a headache and the smell of new furniture.

Huh.

She rolled over and found herself staring at the very man she had assumed herself rid of, reclining lazily in midair with his arms behind his head.

She wasn't aware of making any noise, but she must have done _something_, because his startling eyes snapped open and he was on her in an instant.

"Listen up, girlie," he growled, voice gravelly, straddling her with one large, cold hand covering her mouth. "Don't think I won't kill you if you scream. Keep quiet. Got it?"

She nodded. She was probably too afraid to make any noise anyway. He was _on_ her, pressing her into the bed with his weight, and she could feel the coolness of his skin through their clothes. No way to escape...nowhere to escape to, actually. He could find her.

He took his hand off her mouth, but made no effort to move off her, just leaned back and crossed his arms.

"Get off me," she mumbled, afraid to move lest she touch him more than was necessary.

He raised an eyebrow. "Wassat?"

"I said get off me!" She said louder, turning red. "It's not like you can't catch me if I run away."

He leered at her. "I like it here. Nice and comfy. Makin' me kinda hard, actually."

He was lying about that last part. She didn't want to call him on it though, afraid he would take it upon himself to prove her wrong.

"Please don't," she said in a tiny voice, hating him, hating her weakness. She squeezed her eyes shut as he brought his face closer.

"Don't _what_, Lydia?"

She swallowed. "Don't...don't rape me."

It was quiet for a few seconds, and she opened her eyes. He was staring at her. Then he sighed and rolled off her.

"'m not gonna rape you. Fuck."

She sat up, timidly watching him. He was sitting cross-legged at the end of her bed, looking sullen, like she had insulted him. He looked different. Thinner, definitely. His eyes were more sunken, surrounded by light purple circles that made his eyes seem even greener. The mold and dirt that had been crawling up his neck the last time she had seen him was gone.

"Sorry..." She said. "You just...implied it."

"I'm not that fucked up. Yet. You, on the other hand..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Years of being made fun of by her classmates made her touchy. He was telling her she wasn't normal. Fuck him.

He was suddenly in her face again, snarling. "You broke a _promise_, Lydia. That's a _big deal_."

She fell over backward in her haste to get away from him, and he loomed over her once again. "I – I wasn't the one who killed you!" She immediately regretted saying it. She had reminded him of Barbara. _Shit_.

"You were struggling enough before that," he growled. "_I_ kept up my end of the bargain. You didn't. Who's the bad guy here?"

"Don't pretend you're a victim," she snapped, suddenly angry. "A good person would have done it anyway, and they definitely wouldn't have forced a fourteen year old girl to marry them, you – you pedophile!"

"That doesn't have anything to do with nothing," he snorted. "Doesn't matter if I'm a good person or not. I did my part, you didn't. Way I see it, you owe me."

"And if I refuse to help you?"

He didn't say anything, just grinned wryly at her and held his palm in front of him. Bright fire shot from the end of each fingertip.

"All right, all right," she said quickly. He curled his hand into a first and the flames were extinguished with a hissing sound. "What do you want?"

"Not sure yet. For now just keep your mouth shut. That includes those two fuckers you have locked up in your attic."

"Leave them alone," she said, sitting bolt upright. "I mean it, Beetlejuice – "

"_Don't fucking say that._"

He shoved her, hard, onto her back and locked his hands over her wrists. She yelped and bucked under him, panicking. "_Get off me!_"

"Lydia?"

They both froze, staring at each other. "I'm not here," he hissed at her, then vanished.

She sat up. "...Beej?" She ventured tentatively.

Her door opened and Delia stepped into the room. "Lydia, are you all right? I thought I heard yelling."

"Mother, knock!" She said, amazed at how annoyed her voice sounded. She was still practically shaking.

"Oh, sorry Lydia," Delia said, blinking. "But what were you doing up here?"

"I fell out of bed. Freaked me out."

Delia sighed. "Really, dear...you had me worried."

"Sorry."

"Just be more careful. Dinner is in five minutes. We're having crab puttanesca. Will you be eating?"

"Um...yeah."

Delia looked surprised, then smiled. "Oh, good. You've gotten so thin..."

She left, shutting the door behind her. Lydia had just started to recover when Beetlejuice popped back into the visible spectrum, floating at eye level next to her bed.

"Happy?" She said bitterly, glaring at him.

"Yeah." He grinned. "Bring me back some dinner."

--

"Can you even...how are you doing that?"

He swallowed a huge, un-chewed mouthful of pasta and seafood. "Not hard. Eating doesn't do anything for me, but it's fun."

"It doesn't back up or anything?"

He snorted. "No." She waited, but he didn't offer any further explanation. Vaguely disappointed, she leaned back against her door and watched him.

"What happened to all the stuff on your neck?" She couldn't seem to be quiet. All the things about him that she had found interesting a year ago were bubbling to the surface, despite what she knew. _That's he's a con-artist. A murderer. A perverted asshole. _ Being afraid of him didn't make him any less interesting.

"Ask alotta questions, don't you?"

She flushed but refused to be intimidated. "I'm curious."

He finished the heap of food she had given him and moved on to licking the plate. "Why's that? You miss me?" He looked at her piercingly over its ceramic edge.

"Hardly," she said derisively.

He snorted disbelievingly but put his empty plate down, stretching out on her bed. "I had all that crap on me because I drowned in a bog and never got around to getting it off. Being swallowed doesn't change you much."

"...I am sorry about that."

"Doesn't change much, though, does it?" He sneered.

She ignored him. "I mean, I didn't want to marry you, and I'm glad I didn't, in the end, but...I'm sorry you died."

"Yeah, well, now you get to fix it."

She took a deep breath. "If you hurt anyone I won't help you."

"You don't much of a say in this," he growled, going from relaxed to intimidating in a second.

"So kill me. But you need me to stay out, don't you? That's why you haven't yet." She was realizing these things as she said them, and by the time she was done talking she felt extremely pleased with herself. And much safer.

"Aren't you smart," he spat at her.

"Uh huh..."

"Fine. I won't hurt anyone."

She smiled at him. "Thanks."

They resigned themselves to having to spend the night together.


	3. In Which the Visitor Establishes Himself

Their uneasy peace didn't last for long. No sooner had Lydia finished changing into her pajamas (in the bathroom, with the door locked, and a towel tucked over the mirror) than she realized they had hit another bump: one bed. And she wasn't the one who currently held possession over it.

"Um...Beej?"

He didn't even open his eyes, just grunted at her.

"I need to sleep now," she hinted.

He blinked and turned indolently to look at her. "_That's_ what you sleep in?"

Her long cotton bottoms and billowy T-shirt, which she had been perfectly happy with a second ago, suddenly made her feel childish. Actually, she usually slept in a too-short purple tank top and black sweat pants. But she figured that would be pushing her luck right into hell.

"Yes," she quipped, silently daring him to further comment on it. "Were you expecting lingerie? Should I put on a show?"

"If you're offerin'..."

She made a disgusted noise and tried again. "I need the bed to sleep."

"So do I."

"You're _dead_!"

"So? I can eat, can't I?"

"It's my bed."

"I dunno if you've figured out the whole prisoner thing yet, but I'm pretty much the one who says what goes."

"I'm repaying a debt. That doesn't make me your servant."

"'m I asking you t' serve me? I'm just saying I'm not giving up the bed."

"And what am I supposed to do?"

He grinned rakishly at her. "Didn't say I wouldn't share."

She stared at him. Although she preferred this joking, pervy poltergeist to the one who had wanted to kill her a few hours earlier, she no longer knew what to do with him. It was hard to be snarky to someone who was throwing innuendo in your face. If she blushed and did the whole embarrassed little girl thing she would be letting him win. If she retaliated...well, she wasn't that kind of person. And he was gross.

And he was also the kind of person who would jump her if she so much as batted an eyelash.

On the other hand, she really didn't want to sleep on the floor. And that would also be letting him win.

Her silence must have clued him in that she was wondering what to do. He sighed impatiently.

"Look, I'm not gonna grope you or anything."

"And I have a viable reason to believe you?" She asked incredulously.

"Fine," he shrugged. "Have fun camping out."

He was _such an asshole_.

"You stay on top of the covers," she snapped.

"_Why?_" He looked scandalized, but she could tell he was amused. Amused she thought cotton could keep him from her, probably.

"Because I don't want to touch you, you corpse."

"Yeah, well, you're a human. Female, too."

She sneered at him. "Just say 'so there'. It's much more mature."

She crawled under her, _her_, dammit, blankets, careful to stay as far away from him as possible. "You're cold," she complained.

"It's the middle of December. I'll warm up when spring comes."

And on that morbid note they fell into silence.

And of course, when she was on the very edge of sleep, he grabbed her ass. And when she kicked him he just jeered and made himself transparent.

She ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room.

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Lydia woke up with her father in her face. "_Lydia._"

_He knows_. She blinked sleepily. "Um..."

"What on Earth are you doing down here?"

_Or not? _"What time is it?" She mumbled.

"It's almost noon...sweetie, why did you sleep on the couch?"

_So I could maintain my virginity. _"I just...didn't feel like sleeping in my room." It was a damn good thing she was the kind of person who would do just that. She sat up and yawned. "Is Delia angry?"

"Not yet. She wants you to go the grocery store for some artichoke hearts...I wouldn't let her realize you've slept in this long."

Hmm. Grocery shopping. They very last thing she felt like doing, because there was a _fucking man in her bedroom_. She sighed.

"All right, let me shower first..."

She hurried upstairs and instead of detouring to her room for some fresh clothes, went straight to the bathroom. Would it be stupid to let Beetlejuice know she was about to get naked? Invariably.

She locked the door, stripped, and stepped into the spray of hot water. When she was completely soaked she rested her forehead against the cool tile.

Prisoner. She was a prisoner. Nasty conversations aside, he could kill her with the flick of a wrist, and she knew he wouldn't hesitate to if he thought of a reason. She was at the mercy of a psychopath who couldn't seem to keep his hands off her, and she was completely alone.

Well, she could deal with that. She had _always_ been alone – friends were a new experience she hadn't learned to depend on yet. She could handle herself fine, but...maybe Beetlejuice was too much? There was certainly nothing _she_ could do to protect herself, short of returning him to the afterlife...and she was sure he had some way to prevent that, or he wouldn't have let her out of his sight.

She still had that dress, she realized with an unpleasant jolt. She still had her ring too, shoved into a tiny box under her cavernous bed. And she had them because they were just irrevocably interesting. Why was she so attracted to things that should make her cringe? He was right. There was obviously something wrong with her.

Well, the second she figured out how she was sending him back, and that was that. They could move. _And spend the rest of your life avoiding mirrors? _She resisted the urge to cry with frustration. What was she supposed to do?

She wished Barbara and Adam were there. She considered saying it out loud, if only to take some small consolation from their names, but that would just be decidedly pathetic. She was stronger than that.

She turned the water off and dressed back in her pajamas. She towel-dried her hair and pulled it up into a messy ponytail. She snorted at her reflection. Nice. Very dignified.

She considered knocking on her door before entering, then stopped, bewildered with herself. For the love of God, it was her room, not his. She swung it open, maybe a little more forcefully than was necessary, but she was trying to seem confident.

"Beej?" She tried. "I'm going to the store..."

He suddenly popped into existence on her un-made bed, wild hair disarrayed. "Where'd you go last night? I got lonely."

"I'm not like those...those dead girls you probably chase after all the time," she snapped. Oh. God. That had just been lame. "I'm not going to let you grab me."

And she strode over to her closet, grabbed the closest things she saw, and left. She sighed after she had shut the door behind her. She was going without a bra today.

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Unfortunately he took it upon himself to go with her.

"_Why,_" she demanded, pedaling as hard as she could. "Do you have to follow me?"

"Look, I don't wanna hang out with you either," he said flatly, humor gone. She wondered if it was hard for him to keep up with her on her bike, and managed to make herself go faster. "But your word is shit, as we so delightfully know."

Delightfully? If he had been one of her friends she would have been all over him for that one.

His physical body was gone. Apparently it was too stressful to keep up with her and retain a solid form. Or he was just invisible again – she couldn't really differentiate between the two. In any case, she could now only tell where he was when he decided to say something. It made her feel dangerously vulnerable.

"I outta kill you."

A tremor of fear slithered down her spine. He sounded thoughtful, musing, like it wasn't that big of a deal one way or another. _Well, I think I might kill you. __Hum dee dum. _

"They would know," she said quietly, staring straight ahead. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears. If she wasn't about to die on her bedroom carpet she was about to die on her way to the grocery store. A hysterical little giggle bubbled under her self-control. She forced it down.

"Nah...you get flattened by a truck, driver zooms off. Hit and run. Nice an' easy."

A sick kind of dread was roiling in her stomach, oozing up her throat and down her arms. Her breath shortened into small, quiet gasps. Oh, there was no doubt about it, he terrified her. She could feel the urge to make noise, some kind of keening that came straight from instinct. She swallowed thickly.

"But you wont." She said, voice perfectly even.

"Oh yeah...?"

The bike suddenly lurched to the left. She let out a terrified cry and swerved back to the right, trying to straighten her tire. He laughed and let go, letting her have control again.

Lydia was silent for the remainder of the trip. She couldn't believe she had stayed in the same bed with him, however shortly. A cold wave passed over her at the recent memory. No, he was crazy and he hated her, she would be ridiculously stupid to think otherwise. She couldn't keep letting her guard down.

She left her bike chained to a tree on the edge of the parking lot and walked towards the store without stopping to make sure Beetlejuice followed. She was vaguely hoping he would get blown away by a gust of wind.

A few steps later she realized it was really worse not knowing where he was.

Well, whatever. She was woman, she could handle it.

She screamed bloody murder when he blew (or fucking exploded; why the hell were his lungs so strong if they didn't work?) in her ear. She heard him laugh meanly. People stared. She realized she knew some of them.

Oh yes, his ass was going right back in the mirror.

"...Lydia?" A small group of friends from school approached her.

"...hey."

"Why'd you...why'd you scream?" The one she didn't really know that well, David, she thought, asked.

"A spider web got stuck in my hair." Lame.

"_That _made you scream?" For someone who hardly knew her, he was awfully perceptive. Maybe it was all the black she wore.

"It was big."

"Oh – kay. We just wanted to make sure you weren't being...y'know...decapitated or anything."

"See you," she said dully.

"What the hell did you do that for?" She snarled (at thin air) once they were out of sight.

He just blew in her other ear. "Shut up an' get your mom's crap."

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He had invariably changed his opinion by the time dinner rolled around, because he sickeningly shoveled his food down with as much gusto as he had the night prior. Delia had progressed past the point of taking pleasure in Lydia's sudden appetite and was now worried she would get fat.

"Yeah, well, you could afford t' gain a few pounds," he mumbled. She was starting to notice he was always in a better mood after he ate. Better meaning he could go five minutes without pretending to attack her or being an ass.

"Why do you even bother talking to me?" She was shooting herself in the foot here, she _wanted_ him to talk to her, but that didn't mean she had to admit it to him. At the same time she wanted to know more about him she would also be perfectly happy if he suddenly didn't exist. Besides, he had taken her bed. That was beyond assholic.

"Look, I can play the whole twisted fucker deal, but it gets old."

"You are twisted. You don't need to play anything."

His lips quirked. "Say fuck."

"Screw you!"

He outright laughed, teeth gleaming. She wondered if it was worth it to get mad. Too late!

"I hate you, you know that? You are needlessly vindictive, you're rude, you _took my bed _– "

"_Fuck_ you're naive." He stared at her like he was just seeing her clearly for the first time. "I really thought with all that goth shit you had a better grip on reality."

"My grip on reality is _fine_," she hissed, feeling her cheeks heat up. "Meanwhile you go around ruining people's lives because you don't have one, like the pathetic asshole – "

"Oh, shut up," he cut in. She did, startled by his curtness. "Defensive much?"

"I..." She trailed off self-consciously, unknowingly hunching her shoulders protectively.

His lips tilted downwards in something that maybe could have been interpreted as regret, if she was high out of her mind. Then they curved back up. "How old are you?"

"Will you get turned off if I say I'm not a minor?"

"Will you _stop it _with the pedophile shit?"

"So stop touching me every five minutes!"

"When I was a kid girls your age were already up for marriage," he snorted.

"Oh, that explains it." She threw her arms up. "It's totally okay now!"

"Jesus, just tell me how old you are."

"Fifteen."

"Way past marrying age. Anyways, that kid in the parking lot had the hots for you."

"Who, David? That's just silly. I don't even know David."

"Yeah, well, that might change soon."

"How old are _you_?"

He seemed startled by the question. "Why?"

"Well, why did you ask me?"

"You know why I don't like breathers?" He asked abruptly. "You're so fucking random – it's like ya can't focus on anything for more than five seconds."

She gave him an unimpressed look. That was an evasion if she ever heard one (and a _lie_ too – he was as random as they came), and she frankly didn't feel like having twisty conversations.

"I'm going to bed."

He looked up. "Where're you sleepin'?"

She briefly remembered the bicycle incident and sighed, rubbing at her eyes. "Where do you think?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a plot here, really. I just didn't focus on it much in this chapter.

I had fun with this. Pedophile. Haha.


	4. In Which a Turning Point is Reached

This site ate all my borders. What am I supposed to do now? It's going to take foreeever to put them all back.

And you don't need to worry. Sure, I'm lazy and take months to update and most people will have probably lost interest by then, but at least I update, right? Right.

SHAMELESS ROMANCE.

(Zomg, Lydia goes to an all girls school. Let's pretend she doesn't.)

* * *

"Hey, Lydia, you look tired."

That was how Lydia started off her day.

Coincidentally, the girl who told her this had been part of the group that had approached her in the parking lot, some two or three days ago. She should probably make a rousing effort to prove she wasn't crazy.

"Yeah...my parents are really loud."

"Oh. Geeze, I'm sorry. That sucks."

Actually, Delia_ had_ been loud, when she'd finally discovered where Lydia had been sleeping. Sleeping on the couch was_ so_ distasteful, and why on Earth would she need to when she had her nice, antique bed? What would people think if they saw her? From now on she had better start sleeping in her bedroom, like a proper young lady.

Personally, if it was a choice between sleeping on a couch or sleeping with a man, Lydia thought the couch was really the lesser of two evils. Maybe it was the times.

Lydia took a brief moment to indulge her more curious side and imagine Beetlejuice naked.

And was disgusted. Jesus.

Their treaty (If you could call it that; he loved reminding her that death was just a wrist flick away) was still intact, if not devastatingly fragile. She knew he wouldn't hesitate to blow them all away if he found reason to.

Probably she should stop provoking him.

Ah, well.

He was becoming gradually less bitchy with her, though. Maybe pissing her off got boring after a while.

It was all rather anticlimactic, she thought. If he was going to come up with some amazing plan to ensure his freedom, he should hurry up and do it. She was almost getting used to him.

"Lydia! Hey, Lydia!"

She stopped wheeling her bike away from the bike rack and turned around. It was that...that David kid. She wearily wondered if she should smile at him. Pretend to be normal.

"Hey..."

She didn't say his name, though. She still wasn't sure what it was.

He stopped short when he caught up to her. "Whoa...you look tired."

"I am."

"Oh...well, me and some friends are going down to that burger place."

She had to admit, she was feeling rather impatient with him. She had to get home and make sure her guest didn't decimate anything. "Uh-huh..."

"Do you wanna come?"

"Not really." She winced. "I mean, I do, but I can't. I have...stuff."

"Oh." He looked like he didn't believe a word she had said. She hoped she hadn't hurt his feelings or anything. Her classmates were so...touchy. "Well, that's cool. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah." She managed to smile at him. "See you then."

She managed to get her bike all the way to the sidewalk before anything happened.

"Told ya."

"_Oh my God!_"

"Geeze, no need to have a fuckin' seizure."

She wheeled around, pulse racing, and tried to roughly estimate where he was. "What are you _doing_ here?"

"Followed you. Yer dad's boring as hell, y'know?"

"You can't – you can't come to school with me!"

"Kinda late, dontcha think?"

"I hate you."

"Yeah, yeah."

She stared suspiciously at an empty spot where he might be, if she was lucky. "You came to make sure I didn't put you back, didn't you?"

He laughed. "Damn! You caught me."

"Don't yell! Are you insane? They'll hear you!"

But apparently they could only hear her, talking to herself, because the surrounding students were starting to stare. With a general sense of humiliation, she mounted her bike and let gravity pull her downhill.

"Don't go home."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm bored. Don't go home."

"It isn't my job to entertain you."

"I don't require your consent."

She should have realized that he never talked just to fill up silence, that whenever he said something it was with some motive in mind. But she followed her not-so-smart side, pedaling on like she wasn't in danger.

So she was taken completely unawares when she and her bike flew up into the air. She screamed unthinkingly.

"_Beetlejuice!_"

Then she wasn't in the air at all, and she heard his angry grunt as he shoved her, and her bike went spinning out of control. She swerved off the road and straight into a stump, and velocity hurled her over her handlebars. She landed in a crumpled heap with her arm twisted behind her back. Something snapped.

"Oh. Oh, shit. Fuck. You okay?" He leaned over her, visible.

She lashed out at him. "Get away from me!" Pain shot up her arm to her shoulder, and her mouth dropped open in stunned agony.

He pulled away, hesitated, then reached towards her again. "C'mon, I'll take you – "

"No! You broke my arm!" Tears coursed down her face in hot trails. She screwed up her eyes in an effort to stop their progress.

"Yeah, but I didn't do it on purpose!"

"_Yes you did!_" Her voice edged on hysterical. She squirmed backwards on the ground, trying to get away, clutching her damaged elbow in an effort to keep the pain contained, keep it from shattering outward. "You – I _fucking hate _you. You know that?" She was screaming now, all the helplessness and frustration of the last few days lashing out at him in a wave of nastiness she couldn't contain. "I wish you didn't exist. I – I wish you were dead!"

Never mind that that didn't make sense. It _hurt_. And anyways, her sentence had ended in a garbled sob, so maybe he hadn't even understood what she'd said. She lowered her head, humiliated, and let herself cry. Maybe she would get lucky and he would fly away. Leave her alone. Let her get back to her life.

She spasmed with his calloused fingers reached out and gripped her chin, forcing her face to tilt upwards. He stared at her incredulously, bright green eyes sparked with irritation. "Christ, what's wrong with you? It's just an arm. It'll get better."

She laughed angrily, trying to twist her face away. "Do you not get it? I've spent the last year terrified you would come back. It was like some stupid impediment that wouldn't let me do anything. I don't have any _friends_. I'm never going to have a normal life because of you!"

He refused to release her, and when she looked at him again his mouth was taught with repressed anger. "Sure you will. As soon as I leave your life will go right back to normal."

She tried to kick him but found it was a difficult task in her current angle. "No, you moron, that's not how it works."

"You know what does work? Going to the hospital."

She recognized his deflection and decided to go along with it. Obviously, uncontrollable emotional upheavals from teenage girls didn't mean anything to him, and she wasn't going to waste time trying to convince the reason for her inability to understand her.

"You really think I'm going to let you touch me?" She did her best to sneer, but it ended up as more of a grimace. His eyes flicked from her face to her arm, and back again.

"You really think you have a choice?"

"I'll just stay _here_ until someone finds me."

"Don't be a dumbass."

Totally ignoring her, he scooped her into his arms with as much gentleness as she was probably ever going to get from him. Even so, her arm as jarred when he stood, her weight making him stumble, and she let out an embarrassing squeal of pain. He flinched like she'd hit him.

"...sorry," he said gruffly. And she knew it was the only apology she was going to get.

* * *

Well, so he'd broken a fifteen year old girl's arm. So what?

So he felt like a total dick.

He wasn't stupid, he'd noticed the subtle shift of their relationship even she hadn't. They weren't really hunter and huntee anymore, they were more...reluctant allies. Almost. Who wouldn't hesitate to stab each other in the back if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Name-screamer or not, he hadn't meant to actually _hurt_ her. Freak her out maybe, even scrape her up a little, but not _snap her elbow in half_.

She was limp now, finally unconscious from the pain with her arm cradled between his chest and her stomach. He shifted her carefully to one arm to give the other relief. This walking stuff sucked.

She was...supremely unhappy with him, it seemed. It had never occurred to him that she might dislike him for any other reason than being afraid of him. He shifted her to his other arm. Well, what did she need friends for, anyways? She was perfectly capable of independence, that much was obvious. Probably she was still going through that crappy awkward phase.

Well, she _was_ a kid, he reminded himself, no matter how much he went on about her being courtable. Kids were allowed to act like crack heads every once in a while...he guessed.

He turned onto the road she lived on, careful to keep safely hidden in the fringe of trees that ran along it. He shook her a little when they neared her house.

"Lydia. Hey, Lydia. Babes. Wake up." He shook her a little harder.

She blinked slowly, making little noises that would have been cute if she didn't look so irritated. "What?"

He jerked his head in the direction of her door. "Yer gonna have to stand up for a while."

She didn't look like she was particularly happy about this idea, but she nodded anyway. He set her down slowly onto her welcome mat, and when he backed away she stayed up fine, though she was still too pale. He watched her appraisingly for a few seconds, then grinned.

"All right, Babes. This is all you."

And he popped out of the visible spectrum.

* * *

She told her parents that she had fallen out of a tree. It was a mark of their oblivious nature that they accepted this without question.

She didn't climb trees. She might as well have told them she closed her arm in the oven door while baking cupcakes.

Now she was trying to brush her teeth with her left hand. Her new, purple cast rested on the marble counter.

She was eighty-five percent sure he was there, watching her. Probably. Maybe. She hoped not. Five minutes with only herself as company would probably be good for her.

But she wasn't going to be that lucky.

"Howdy."

She sighed. "Leave me alone."

He crouched on the edge of the counter, too close to her than she liked. She waved a hand at him irritably. He raised his eyebrow and leaned out of her reach. "You still mad about the bike thing?"

"No, I'm mad about the you always trying to kill me thing. Go away." She didn't particularly like him looking at her while her mouth was smeared with toothpaste; it made her a tad self-conscious. She rinsed and spit into the sink, exceedingly aware that he was watching her every move.

He made everything so awkward...

"Does your arm hurt?" He sounded uncomfortable.

"Do you _think_ it hurts?"

"I'm dead. How would I know?"

She looked at him, unwillingly fascinated. Maybe he did it on purpose.

"You used to be alive though, right?"

He shrugged. "Don't remember much of that."

He was such a strange man...No, I don't really remember my life. Not that I care. If she died, she would probably cling to everything that reminded her of being alive for as long as she could manage. Maybe his life hadn't been worth clinging to. It was a depressing thought.

He seemed to sense the dark turn her mood had taken, because he changed the subject. "You can have the bed tonight."

"I – what?"

"You can't sleep on the couch anymore, right?"

"How did you – ?"

He cut her off, rolling his eyes. "Please, Lyds. You really think I ever leave you alone?"

"Oh, I see," she said, voice shaking with anger. "So when I'm showering, and undressing for bed, and – and going to the bathroom, you're _in the room with me?_"

"...well, I don't look."

"Bastard!"

"No need for names..."

She opened her mouth to berate him further, stopped, and looked at him suspiciously. "Can I really have the bed?"

He grinned, pointed teeth glistening in the harsh light from the ceiling fixture. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Oh, screw you."

"Don't push it."

"...sorry."


	5. In Which Everyone Tries to be Normal

Happy mother's day!

(I should probably be making mine breakfast. I'm a bad child...)

* * *

Lydia woke up more untroubled than she had in days.

For one thing, she was in her room for the first time since who-knew-when, safely tucked into her bed. For another, her heavy bedspread was starting to make her swelteringly uncomfortable, and there just happened to be this delightfully convenient source of cool right next to her. She sighed contentedly and rolled over to press more fully against it, snuggling her cheek into what she could only assume was a miracle. Mmm, it was nice.

She was halfway through trying to maneuver her knee over it so she could get some of that delicious coolness on her thighs when it moved.

And she remembered with shocking certainty who she was rooming with.

There was a beat of silence while they stared at each other, then she vaulted herself away from him with a choked gasp and went toppling over the edge of the bed.

Beetlejuice leaned to look down at her with unconcerned languidity, expression amused. "You okay there?"

"_You! _What were you doing in my bed?"

He just smiled at her. "What were you doin' spooning me?"

Oh, _asscracker_. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Thought you were just getting frisky."

Lydia discarded the notion of arguing some more for hiding her face in her hands in mortification. One step forward, two steps back. She should have known not to trust him to stay on the floor. Why couldn't he go one damn day without severely impairing hers?

Oh. _Oh_, and she had been climbing him. That was so...

He shifted, and the light from her window glimmered dimly on his skin in a way that had her doing a double take.

No.

Well, her sheets were covering his bottom half, but from the waist up..."Are you naked?"

He looked faintly uncomfortable. "Um..."

"You _are_ naked." She could feel the dull panic rising, feel the hysteria clawing its way to the surface. "You slept with me and you were _naked_."

His awkward expression broke and he started laughing, hunched over and defenseless. She stared at him, feeling every bit like she had just been screwed over like a naive child.

"Why do you do these things to me?" She sighed. "Sometimes I think you can almost act like a normal person, then you go and do something to contradict me."

He calmed down enough to talk to her, lips still twitching erratically. "Normal like what? That kid? Like all those friends you hang out with?" He shook his head, smiling wryly to himself. "Babes, be honest. You don't have anything to compare me with."

"No. I mean like right now. When you're just talking to me as opposed to...I don't know, crashing my bike?"

He had the grace to look furtively guilty, before he snorted and the effect was ruined. "Don't go expecting anythin'."

"I never do."

"Hey..."

She suddenly grinned. "You know, your hair is ridiculous."

"...'s not that bad."

"No, it is. Trust me."

He snorted. "No thanks."

"_Hey_."

He genuinely smiled at her for the first time since...well, ever, and her biting remark withered and crumbled before it could leave her mouth.

His face was less harsh, more human, almost approachable. It wasn't ordinary, but there was a softness to it that would have made it extremely difficult to believe he was a psychopath had she passed him in the street.

If she had to elaborate, she'd say his smile was dorky.

Then he shifted so that the side of his pearly white thigh was showing, and she was briskly reminded why she had been angry in the first place.

"I'm going to bring some breakfast back." She gestured lamely at herself to indicate her pajamas. "You...you get dressed while I'm gone."

She sidled away and out the door like the adolescent girl she was, half expecting him to come after her. Without clothes on. Because he was naked. Breakfast could damn well wait, she was going to take a nice burn-your-skin-off shower first, complete with lots of soap. And maybe some bleach.

Albeit, he had very pretty skin. And dimples.

Cold shower. With a locked door.

* * *

He actually did follow her, but she didn't need to know that, because he didn't go any farther than the hallway outside of the bathroom.

Listening to her undress was weirdly soothing. He would have preferred to see the actual event in action, but spying on a handicapped person would just be a little...low. (So was sleeping with one, but he never said he was perfect.) When she was done with that he listened to her mild cursing attempts as she tried not to get her cast wet.

He might have been able to speed her arm's healing process along if he cared to try. But he doubted she would let him get that close to her. Of course, he didn't technically need her permission (they'd been over that), but he wasn't really sure what he might end up doing to her. She might find herself with six fingers or something. In the end he was probably better off leaving her alone.

He scowled.

At that moment the doorbell rang. A second later Delia called up the stairs for Lydia to come down.

He heard her rattle off more swear words in a breathy little hiss – which was _so_ like her, she could never say things like that in a normal tone – then the water shut off and he heard the shower curtain being pulled back. He had just enough time to blend himself into the light beige wall behind him before she pushed the door open and emerged in jeans and a ratty old tank top that was on the verge of slipping off her dainty shoulders. She bent over right in front of him (God, this was his day.) to towel dry her hair, then padded lightly down the hall, damp towel draped over her arm. "Yeah?"

"Your little friends are here to see you!"

He heard her sigh, then she disappeared around the corner. He shook himself out and slowly floated after her.

He kept his progress slow. For the most part he could stay invisible, but if the stray more-sensitive-than-most person stared at him long enough they might notice. (The trick to get around this was to just keep moving, but that got annoying after a while.) It was just easier to _not _crash into a room and unleash his presence on everyone in it.

He came into the foyer and found a little niche near the ceiling where he could see everything.

Lydia's classmates were a weird bunch, he had to say. Or rather, kind of lame. She looked like she didn't quite know what to do with them. Obviously she didn't have guests often.

"Um...hey."

A petite girl with frizzy orange hair was shifting from foot to foot like she didn't really know what to make of being there. Maybe Lydia intimidated her? (Which was kind of ridiculous, from what he'd seen of her Lydia wouldn't hurt a fly...aside from himself, of course.) That brown haired kid was there too – geeze, he followed her everywhere, didn't he? – and was watching Lydia with all the fascination of a loyal dog. There were also two girls who looked like they might be twins, and they hung near the back of the group, near Brown Haired Kid.

Actually, forget lame. They were downright annoying.

He idly wondered if Lydia would mind if he flipped over a chair. Or a person.

He listened to them chit chat for a while, Lydia looking hugely uncomfortable, then ghosted (ha) down to whisper in her ear. "Don't try anything."

She would make a crappy actress. She jumped and her dark gray eyes widened dramatically. Brown hair looked at her in puzzlement, but it otherwise went without notice.

He disappeared – physically – with a small pop that probably had everyone looking around confusedly and most likely leaving a very pissed off Lydia in his wake. He reappeared in her room, rubbing his chin musingly.

He could give her a break, he guessed. A holiday.

But what was he going to do to entertain himself?

Hummm...

Life was surprisingly boring without Lydia. Perhaps it was a good thing he had decided against killing her.

...huh. Life was so tricky sometimes.

And then inspiration hit him with a snap.

Time to check on the Maitlands.

* * *

This was...dammit, having friends was so _hard_.

In all honesty, she did not want to be there. She did not want to be _at the mall_, of all the stupid, superficial places they could have gone, with a group of people she hardly knew.

For starters, they kept getting separated. It was a weekend and the mall was ostentatiously busy, which made it exceedingly difficult to walk in a group. The others seemed to be managing it fine, they were having a great time up there in their huddled little clique. It was her that kept getting jostled away from them and left to walk by herself until she was presented with an opportunity to catch up.

David was being really nice about hanging back with her when he could manage, though. And every once in a while Prudence would glance back at her, tap someone's arm, and they would slow down. (Although this in itself was painful, because they were making an effort to include her and they shouldn't have had to. It should happen naturally.)

Furthermore, she was so out of her element it was hilarious. She was wearing old, faded jeans and a holey tank top...the jeans were low slung enough to look fashionable on someone bright and fresh-faced, but she wasn't bright and fresh-faced, she was dark and complex and no idea what the hell she was doing when it came to clothes, so she just looked sulky. Everyone around her was dressed in current, nearly identical outfits complete with cute jewelry and too much makeup.

Her town was such a stereotype...

She could not have felt more unhappy with her current situation if she tried.

But then, she did want to be there. Badly.

She wanted so bad to just have fun with people who genuinely liked her and act like a normal girl for one day. She wanted it so bad it hurt.

But it was so much_ work_. She kept having to remind herself to make conversation about silly, inane little things that no one wanted to hear about because when she stopped talking there was always this sticky, awkward silence because no one knew what to say to her. Apparently these people were not comfortable with silence like she was. Surely having fun was supposed to be more...fun?

Well, maybe the trick was to go out with people who understood you better.

It occurred to her that the only person who really understood her had tried to kill her on numerous occasions.

Fuck. She needed a new life.

And this store was just ridiculous. All these...these plaid shorts and cute little T-shirts. There was no way she would ever...

Ooh. Was that red?

"You're not going to try that on, are you?"

Lydia looked up from the enticingly delicate shirt she had just excitedly distangled from the discount rack. One of the black-haired sisters was eyeing it incredulously. "Is there something wrong with it?" She asked politely.

Obviously she thought there was, but before she could say so Prudence interrupted.

"I think it's pretty," she said, very quietly.

"Uh...there's one in your size, too," Lydia said blankly, pointing. She regretted it immediately. Prudence probably didn't _really_ like it, she was probably just trying to be nice, and Lydia had just backed her into a corner...

But she just smiled. "Cool." Then she grabbed it from where Lydia had indicated and shuffled off in the direction of the dressing rooms. "Come on, we can try them on together."

Lydia glanced once at the surly-looking girl whose name she didn't really want to know, then went after Prudence.

And that was how she ended up buying her first shirt from a store since she had been introduced to her mother's sewing machine. It wasn't a bad experience.

After that they all bought pretzels, and had to split up to find enough tables for everyone. For a moment Lydia panicked – who the hell was she going to partner with! – but then David grabbed her hand without a second's hesitation and led her over to a table in the far corner of the lunchroom, by a father trying to coax his daughters into eat their fruit. The blunt contact made her feel a little uncomfortable (and this was coming from someone who spent the night with a grown man), but she figured that was inevitable. He looked perfectly at ease, so she could manage.

"Having fun?" He asked brightly.

"Yes," she lied. "By the way, how did you know where I lived?"

He looked a little thrown off. Maybe that had been too abrupt a subject change.

"Prudence told me," he said quickly, in the overly offhand kind of tone people used when they were hiding something.

He was lying. She wasn't sure what to feel about that. Was he afraid he would appear overly eager or something? This was all so complicated!

"Oh." She chewed thoughtfully on her pretzel. "Are _you_ having fun?"

He smiled a little guiltily. "Not really."

"Is it me?" She blurted.

He seemed taken aback, blinking at her. "Huh? No, no, of course not. I just think Sylvia and Selene are kind of irritating."

Sylvia and Selene? Well, that could explain why they were so bitchy...

"I hadn't noticed."

"You're too nice." He shook his head, smiling at her warmly. Personally, she didn't think being a liar was particularly endearing. "I know they've been giving you a hard time."

She shrugged, smiling a little. "I'm used to it."

He rolled his eyes. "There's no reason for you to be."

That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. Strangely enough, she didn't feel any kind of a reaction.

The next thing she knew, David had somehow reached her over the table and was trying to kiss her.

Her brain froze, and all she could think was _Wow, he has an awfully long neck._

Then his lips were touching hers and she snapped back to reality. He wasn't being particularly rough, but he wasn't gentle, either. If anything, he was just mashing his face against hers in a persistent kind of way that she was sure looked pretty stupid to the surrounding public.

She felt nothing. Kissing was undoubtedly supposed to be more exciting than this. Then his tongue snaked out and tapped her mouth, and she almost died right then and there. She didn't like this. She twisted her head to the side and away from him, refusing to meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I don't...like you that way."

He was silent, not moving from his perch leaning over her while she stared at the metal lattice work of their table. Then he let out a long breath and sat back down.

"That's fine," he said lightly. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you."

It was quiet after that. The kind of tense, dragging silence that made her wish somebody would spontaneously combust just so it would end. She cleared her throat.

"I need to go home now. I'll...see you around, okay?"

He hummed vaguely. "See you."

She felt a spark of irritation. So now that she wasn't going to let him suction her face off he wasn't interested in her? "You know," she said tersely. "That was my first kiss."

He looked at her, expression guarded. "I said I was sorry."

Sorry? She had been dreaming about this moment since she was eight. And he had just taken it.

"So did I," she said bleakly. "I didn't mean it.

* * *

Walking home that day was one of the most depressing things Lydia had ever experienced.

It was raining.

She shouldn't have minded, she actually kind of liked the rain. But under the current circumstances...

She was cold. She was cold and she was wet and she was on the very verge of crying, which she was starting to do way too damn often, and she just wanted to go home. Stupid her, thinking she could just have a nice day with her classmates. It figured she would get ditched the second something went wrong.

She reached up to brush her sopping wet bangs out of her face. She shouldn't think like this. She had already been down that road, and she had no desire to repeat the experience. So what if the only person she had a remote chance of being friends with was Prudence? So what?

It was so easy to tell herself that. It was something infinitely harder to make herself believe it.

So she walked home and wished it wasn't raining.

* * *

He had been waiting around the attic for hours, and they had yet to show up.

At first he had just assumed they were out to the Neitherworld, on some errand or another. But the longer he reclined in midair, arms and legs crossed, the more apparent it became that the room held zero energy. No static. It was dead. Flat.

They hadn't been here for weeks.

And if they weren't in the house, they had to be Gone.

Well...good. That was one less thing he had to deal with.

He idly wondered why Lydia had never found the time to mention their absence to him. Then he remembered that she actually kind of hated him. Well, he didn't really care one way or another...

His ears pricked. The subtle _swoosh_ of the front door closing and quiet, slow footsteps told him Lydia was home. He waited until she had reached the upstairs hallway before going out to greet her.

She was soaked, dripping water on the carpet and shivering pitifully. In her left hand she clutched a small paper shopping bag, in danger of falling apart. He blinked at her for a few seconds and she stared back. Then his mind finally registered something and his eyes narrowed.

He strode forward and seized her, and, ignoring her muffled gasp and shocked stiffening, buried his face against her neck and inhaled deeply.

"What the _hell_ – "

"You smell like that kid. His smell is _all over _you. Christ, what were you doing?"

He lifted his head and was greeted with impossibly huge eyes swimming with moisture just about to brim over the edge. He took a startled step backwards. She was crying?

"What?" He asked confusedly. "Did he dump you when you wouldn't put out or something?"

He had actually just been half-joking and half-guessing, and from his viewpoint it had been a perfectly harmless question. But apparently it meant something to her because as soon as he said it her eyebrows knit into a heart-breaking expression and her lip began to tremble.

Then she burst into tears and turned and locked herself in the bathroom.

He was left staring at the door.


	6. In Which They Try Harder

I'm just not a good person, am I? I'm sorry. Cross Country and room remodeling and job searches got in the way. I'm so far unsuccessful in all three, so I can't say it was worth it or anything...

I had fun going back and reading over the first few chapters of this. Practice makes inconsistency!

...

:D

* * *

For as long as he could remember, Beetlejuice had never had trouble getting what he wanted from women. Yeah, somewhere around the end of his second life things had started getting iffy, but around the end of his second life he had really lost interest in the opposite sex altogether. Sure, a rousing bought of sex was necessary once or twice a week, but that was easily accomplished. Dead whores had even lower standards than live ones.

And anything other than that was unnecessary. He was a loner by nature.

(Kind of like someone else he knew.)

However, at the beginning of his death, when he was still appealing and handsome and scared out of his fucking mind, he had liked women and all their soft, natural comfort. Women were nice. A partner made him feel not-so-afraid and not-so-alone. There was still a lot of sex involved, but it was more for companionship than actual gratification.

So he knew the ins and outs of the double x chromosome. It came hand in hand with actively pursuing them for hundreds of years. He knew how to act to entice them. He knew what to say when they were upset. He knew how to classily suggest they come back to his (exaggerated) place for (nonexistent) coffee.

But Lydia was not a woman, she was utter bat-shit insanity, and he had never thought to see her as anything else. And now, for the first time in decades, he didn't know what to do.

He was halfway through raising his hand to knock on the door when it occurred to him that he really didn't have to do anything.

She was his hostage, his deal pawn. Not a friend. Not his business.

...sometimes he wished he really _was_ a total prick who could stab a nun in the face and not feel any different for it. It would make his life so much easier than it was.

He firmly rapped three times on the door. "Lydia?"

His only answer was a mess of garbled sobs and desperate sniffling. It sounded like she was pressing her face into a towel in an effort to muffle the noise she was making.

He closed his eyes wearily. God, he was in over his head...

She didn't seem altogether surprised when he phased through the door, but she did look exponentially more humiliated. "Please go away," she choked out.

"Well since you said please," he snapped bitingly. She gave him a hurt look, and he mentally kicked himself. He hesitated, staring down at her with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

Well, he had never really cared about what was or wasn't his business anyways. There was no particular reason to start now.

"Lyds," he said quietly, crouching down in front of her. She seemed hellbent on clutching the little beige hand towel to her face, hiding herself from him. He impatiently reached forward and plucked it from her grasp. She let him, hands dropping listlessly to her lap. "Lyds, what happened?"

"It's just some stupid girl thing," she muttered unwillingly. "Forget it."

He rocked back on his haunches, deliberating on the best way to go about this. Usually if he wanted information he _got_ it, no questions asked, but he figured that given his intentions traumatizing her was not the way to go. He should probably go into some subtle, roundabout method of coaxing it out of her.

"Was it that kid? Davey, or whatever?" Well, so maybe he was even worse at subtlety than he thought. It wasn't the end of the world. Lydia wasn't going to break or anything, and she did smell an awful lot like him, which in all honesty was pretty offensive. Lydia had a soft, floral scent that he could smell even under all the rain water (when he had his nose rammed up against her sternum, anyway), and Whatshisname didn't have any business overpowering it.

"Has it occurred to you," she said, exasperation trickling into her wobbling voice. "That I'm perfectly entitled to keep my life to myself?"

"Yeah. 's too bad I don't care."

The corners of her mouth twitched halfheartedly. "That is too bad."

"It would be a lot less bad if you told me what th' hell's going on," he said briskly.

"Why do I doubt that?"

"Because you're stupid."

"Oh, yeah."

Her lack of protest had him even more curious. She was only out for like an hour...surely nothing too life-altering could have happened in that short amount of time? "Was it that Davey kid?"

"David," she corrected. "Actually, I don't even know if that's his name, I just know it starts with a D. And honestly, I don't care."

"...because?" He prompted.

She frowned at him, watery eyes fixated in something like a don't-really-mean-it kind of glare. "You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"It's none of your business."

"I'll set your room on fire again," he threatened.

"You will not," she scoffed. He twitched involuntarily, but she didn't notice. She stared morosely at the bathtub for a few seconds, then hissed, "...such an asshole."

"Who, me?"

"No – well, you too, no offense, but I meant David or whatever his name is. Do you know what he did today?"

"Well, no, I thought that woulda been really clear by now – "

"He kissed me. All day long he followed me around and was all nice and – and gentlemanly, then when I said I didn't want to it was suddenly, 'Well, never mind then, I take all that back.' Oh, and I got my cast all wet walking home. Now I probably have to get a new one because this one will start smelling dreadful."

Finished, she crossed her arms and glowered at the floor, biting the inside of her cheek.

It shouldn't have bothered him. That was the first thing that occurred to him after her stilted and not really satisfactory explanation. He should not have cared that some snot-nosed kid had led Lydia on and then thrown her aside like a rag doll. He shouldn't have cared that someone kissed her.

But it did bother him, it bothered him off a lot more than anything else directly related to him had in a long time, and so when he spoke all that came out was a flat "That's it?"

Her head jerked up to stare at him. "What do you mean, 'That's it?' Do you, do you get it? I – I've never kissed anyone before! I mean, my parents, but that doesn't count. I was all excited about it and everything and – and – are you mad?" She asked suddenly, looking confused.

He looked up sharply. "No, I'm not mad."

She deliberately took in his stiff posture and clenched fists and snorted. "Liar."

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm mad. Can I kill him?"

"I don't think it would be wise."

But she was smiling, and he felt his expression soften as he reached reflexively out to brush the moisture off her face with his thumb. "There. That's what I wanna see."

They both seemed to fully comprehend what he was doing at the same time, and he froze. Then he slowly drew his hand away from her and coughed. "Well, c'mon. Get the hell off the floor."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "I'm wet. I need to shower."

He tilted his head at her, lips slowly peeling back into a grin.

"Oh, get out."

"Your loss," he said dryly, rolling his eyes. He leaned back against the bathroom door and slid through to the hallway.

As soon as she couldn't see him he slouched against the wall and dropped his head into his hands, groaning.

_Way_ in over his head.

* * *

"Hey, Babes, I ever show you where I live?"

Lydia looked at him over her shoulder, immediately suspicious. Sprawled across her bed, one bare foot stretched across the space between his spot and the desk and resting on the top of her chair, centimeters away from actually touching her neck, he was the picture of lazy innocence, eyes sparkling at her with vague excitement as if something momentous had just occurred to him and he wanted to share it with her.

Yeah, like hell. She turned back around to stab more pen holes into her algebra homework, gracing him with an unimpressed "Nope."

Beetlejuice poked her sharply with his toe. "What do you mean, 'Nope'?"

She closed her eyes and prayed that his most recent death had not occurred far back enough for him to have accumulated much grime on his person. Namely the toe that was currently doing its damn best to burrow itself into her hair. She leaned slightly forward to give him a polite hint. Things had been strangely...civil, since her (painfully embarrassing) emotional breakdown. She kept holding her breath, waiting for him to mess their newfound companionship up.

Strangely enough, he had yet to do so. It was almost enough to make her hope...if she had been the hoping kind.

"I meant, 'No, you have not showed me where you live.' Or if you prefer, 'Negative, nein, nay.' D'you want me to get the dictionary, or – "

"Oh, shut up."

She grinned despite herself, glad he couldn't see. "You're mean today."

"Yeah, well..." Suddenly the toe was back, tapping vaguely at the nape of her neck in a thoughtful kind of way. "You bug me on purpose."

"If anyone bugs people on purpose it's you. Why are you stroking my hair with your foot?"

"Why not? It's fun."

She twisted so she was sitting sideways, and the only thing he had access to was her clothed shoulder. He was visibly affronted, and looked sulkily away when she glared at him.

"Yeah, like you didn't like it," he muttered under his breath.

"Hmm?"

"Nuthin'."

She glanced once at her homework, which she had thus far barely managed to dent, then turned easily back around, nudging Beetlejuice's foot aside so she could rest her crossed arms on the chair's back. He allowed it, propping it up on one of the legs instead.

"...so where do you live?" She asked, unable to resist any longer. He smirked.

"Neitherworld."

"Well, I figured that much," she said, annoyed. "...and you wouldn't be able to take me there anyways, why ask?"

His smirk widened. "Whoever said I couldn't take you?"

She regarded him cautiously. True, he had been generally well-behaved for the past few days, but that didn't mean he couldn't break that streak in a second. Today might very well be the day he decided to go ahead and mess everything up.

"I can't go because I'm not dead?" she tried, watching the way his expression grew even more smug. It was extremely disconcerting.

"Think who yer talking to," he said. "I've got power Juno doesn't even consider."

"Are you...is this going to be another anti-permission thing?" She asked quickly. "Because, really, I don't have any interest in goi – "

"Don't kid yourself."

He was watching her with the patient, appraising gaze of a hunter, waiting to see what she would do to dig herself out. Playing with her almost, except he wanted something. For her to say she wanted to? She couldn't see why it would matter either way...still, she tried changing track.

"Okay then, I don't trust you to get me there and back safely," she stated. She didn't miss the way his smile abruptly fell before he plastered it back in place. "What's to stop you from getting me there and then killing me once we're alone?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Why not?" She shot at him. "It would be fun."

"Look," he said, exasperation leaking into his voice. "For one thing, you wouldn't be alone. I'm not the only person in the world who died. An' they have laws an' shit over there. You're just as safe there as you are here. And for another..." He trailed off reluctantly, then continued. "I wouldn't kill you anyways."

That caught her attention. "Why?" She asked, intrigued.

"Cuz!" He snapped. "Look, d'you wanna go or not?"

Common sense was telling her no. An overwhelming sense of combined boredom and curiosity was screaming yes. And then there was that niggling voice in the back of her head urging her to just trust someone for once, stop being such a pessimist...

So it was with a considerable amount of excitement and trepidation that she slowly nodded. It didn't help when his grin took on a decidedly manic edge, eyes flashing.

"How do you get there?" She asked quickly, wanting to divert his attention.

"You take us."

She blinked at him, caught off guard. "How?"

He seemed to think for a moment. "Eh...shit, how do I put this? See, I'm really powerful, so my name is too. An' anyone who says it gets some of that power for a second. They get to do what they want with it."

"...huh?"

"...bunch of crazy shit Juno came up with. When you send me back you get the choice to come with me."

Lydia pictured this and all the manipulative opportunities it created. "Why on earth would she do that?"

"Dunno. She might not'a done it on purpose. I'm pretty fuckin' amazing."

"And I can get back out?" She asked suspiciously.

"Yeah...you can even leave me there."

"Then why are you taking the risk?" She asked, confused.

He looked away from her. "Call it insanity."

"Oh."

"And there's nothing stopping me from coming back after you."

"...Oh."

He suddenly sat up, and she had to make herself not jerk away reflexively. He stretched one large, calloused hand out towards her. She regarded it with unveiled suspicion.

"We got a deal?" He asked.

"...I guess," she sighed.

His hand was cool to the touch, just like the rest of his body, and it enveloped her comparatively small one easily. He briefly squeezed, once, and then released her before she had a chance to return the gesture. (Not that she would have.) She looked at him, casually sitting with his arm draped across his knee and with his hair all screwed up, and felt suddenly shy.

"So...when are we doing this?" She asked, twirling a strand of jet black hair around her index finger.

His eyes drifted off her face to follow her hair's progress, twisting into a shining ball and being released again, then restarting the process. "Uh...what day is it?"

"Thursday."

"Tomorrow. After school."

"...you're not really going to kill me, are you?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

By seventh period the next day, Lydia could have sworn she was going insane. For one thing, she had finally given up on walking to school everyday because it took too long. And things that took too long kept her away from her houseguest longer than was necessary. A houseguest who she still thought required heavy supervision, despite everything he said to assure her to the contrary. Only, neither of her parents could apparently spare the time to drive her, so she had to revert back to biking. Which, when you couldn't really bend your right arm, was kind of difficult. She'd almost clocked a seven year old who'd gotten too close to her dead-on.

For another thing, clocks had to be the most distracting thing in the whole damn world. _How _was she supposed to concentrate when it kept ticking like that? It was so_ loud_.

Prudence was sitting in the desk next to her, tiny little legs curled daintily up under her tiny little body, dutifully scribbling down notes and interest points of Africa's topography. Lydia learned early on that Prudence was not a good person to try and pass the time with. At least, not while they were in class. After school she was perfectly friendly. But Prudence viewed shirking class work right along with beating little old ladies with sticks, so there was no trying to hold a conversation with her most of the time. Lydia honestly didn't mind, because she wasn't particularly keen on struggling to find things they had in common, either. (They had yet to reach any sort of comfort level – that would come later, she guessed.) But right now she was mourning the loss of entertainment; this was torture.

David was sitting a little ways behind them, looking sulky. She kept catching him looking at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention, and it gave her a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.

She had decided before going to school Monday that she wasn't going to deliberately ostracize him. (A small part of her wanted to. Bad.) Sure, he had been a little too grabby and boylike, but what the hell had she been expecting? Beetlejuice was right, he had been interested in her from day one and she had just been too distracted to notice. And yes, he had acted distinctly cool towards her after she turned him down, but she had probably hurt his feelings. If she was interpreting his sudden reclusiveness correctly, he had probably spent the entire week beating himself up over it.

Besides, there were plenty of other people who had done worse to her, and she'd readily forgiven them.

Still, he didn't seem to want to talk to her, and she wasn't going to press the issue. As far as she was concerned, if he wanted to be friendly, then fine. But he had to come to her first. So, yeah, she was still mad. And hurtandbetrayedandvulnerable, but she didn't like to dwell on that.

Although, constant gut-nibbling excitement coupled with random passing thoughts like Oh what the hell was I thinking weren't much better.

Then the bell rang, and Lydia was up and out the door before her teacher could blink, throwing a hurried, "See you Monday, Prudence," over her shoulder. Finally, this was it, she was free to swoop home and God she was excited and – who the hell was that touching her?

She turned around and saw David, in all his cutesy nervous-looking glory, one hand clamped firmly on her shoulder. For a moment all she did was look at him, hoping her silence would nudge him into saying something, but for a long while all he did was stare back, seeming to have forgotten his reason for stopping her. Prudence shot them a dubious look as she went past.

"Yes?" Lydia eventually asked politely.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out, flushing brilliantly.

"Oh...well, okay. It's okay." She should probably have offered him something else (he did look awfully upset), but her current preoccupation was quite dominant over her sympathy. So she looked very pointedly at the hand still holding her in place. "See you Monday, okay?"

"I..." he struggled for a moment. "No, I'm really sorry."

"Well...it's...really okay," she said, perplexed. "Look, I'm not trying to brush you off or anything, but I really have to leave."

"Go out with me."

"I – what?"

"I want to date you."

"Okay, look, when I said I didn't like you like that I really meant – "

"I'm in love with you," he said intensely.

"Wh – No you aren't," she was startled into saying.

"You don't know," he said, eyes boring into hers relentlessly. There was no trace of a blush on his face now. He looked completely serious.

Lydia glanced around suspiciously. Was this a joke? Were Sylvia and Selene lurking somewhere, trying not to laugh? If they were, David was a really good actor...but still, she didn't find it remotely funny. He was too straight-faced, eyes hard and flinty...it was unnerving. Something was wrong.

"Let go," she said slowly, glancing down at his hand again. Her classmates were gone, they had all left by now. David's fingers were digging painfully into her flesh, but she didn't want to acknowledge it out loud. This was a prank, it had to be.

Because if it wasn't, well...she wasn't the best runner.

His mouth twisted into a scowl that made him look years older. "Not until you listen to me.

He tightened his hold on her to bruising force, and as the pain intensified panic pooled into her belly, snaking up her chest and making her feel frozen. His eyes, his eyes were all wrong. She had to distract him somehow, hit him – somewhere, wherever she could reach. Then all she had to do was make it to her bike.

But before she could put any of this into action he suddenly released her and stumbled backwards, blinking. He stood there looking confused, then frowned and approached her again. She backed rapidly away.

"Don't touch me!"

"What's going on?"

Both she and David jumped, startled. Their Geography teacher had just poked his head out of a nearby classroom, and was frowning at them suspiciously.

"Nothing," Lydia said immediately, not taking her eyes off David. He looked back at her, expression frustrated, before turning abruptly and striding away in the opposite direction.

"Were you two fighting?" Mr. Gelbin asked, staring after him.

"No. Just talking."

"Oh, well...while I have you here, I'd like to talk to you about your grade, Lydia. This past month it's dropped almost to a seventy, and – "

"I really have to go," she said, already edging away. "Sorry."

"Lydia – "

"Bye!"

She turned tail and fled in the direction of the exit, only slowing down when she had gotten outside. She cut across the lawn to get to the mostly empty bike rack, frowning.

"I told you not to follow me," she muttered.

"I didn't. You were late." He sounded quite unconcerned. She herself still felt uncomfortably shaken. "Hey, forget your bike. Go into those woods there."

"We need a mirror, don't we?"

"No, we don't."

"Then why...?"

"That's how I get out. When I have someone voluntarily helping me it's not that complicated."

She turned and obediently entered the woods, speckly with scattered sunlight. She had barely gone far enough to really appreciate how pretty it was when he appeared beside her, looking around vaguely. "This'll do. By the way, what the fuck were you and that kid doing?"

She stopped. "Talking."

"Through his hand? You probably have a fuckin' bruise and everything," he said, scowling.

She shrugged, trying to look unaffected. "He's nothing to worry about. Are we going or what?"

He squinted at her, still looking unhappy. "...yeah. Gimme your hand."

She did, and he grasped it tightly.

"Now what?"

"Say my name and concentrate. 's not hard."

She closed her eyes.

And some inner voice crammed in the very recesses of her mind, one that reminded her a lot of her mother, sighed at her. _Oh, Lydia, what are you doing?_

She frowned, paused, and mentally told the voice to go fuck itself. She was doing what she wanted to.

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice."

* * *

Thank you so much, everyone who's reviewing. It's so appreciated. I love you all with a passion that causes me physical harm. :3

_Why aren't you updating?_

Because I'm a bitch. Go ahead and complain, it makes me write faster.

(I'm not being snarky and sarcastic, by the way. Guilt is a good motivator for me.)

**Lydia cries too much.**

Lydia's an outcasted teenage girl who's spent the last few weeks going through day after day of emotional hell. Annoying, maybe, but involuntary.

**Hey, you misspelled something.**

I love you.


	7. In Which There are Field Trips

Howdy.

By the way, if you want early, kind of crappy updates and snippets of incomplete chapters and stuff, go to my livejournal. Or you can wait here for the full, nicely edited versions. Whatever floats your boat.

* * *

When Lydia opened her eyes, she wasn't in the Neitherworld, she was flying.

Through the red-tinted air. In a southernly direction. And it seemed gravity had a good deal of influence over which way she was – ohshitwait, she was _free falling_.

He tricked her! That bastard tricked her into killing herself even after all the sentimental crap her had put her through, after all the time they had spent huddled together in her room, talking and snarking and poking each other, and _oh God _how could he –

Then he was suddenly next to her, looking quite calm and mildly curious about the fact that they were hurtling towards certain death. He reached out very casually and snagged the end of her billowing sleeve, tugging her closer. Raw terror prompted her to fling her arms shamelessly around his neck, very narrowly missing thwacking him upside the head with her cast, and cling to him like her life depended on it. Which it probably did.

"_What the hell is this!_"

He looked down at her, blinking like he was surprised to find someone screaming hysterically into his chest. "Um." Pause. "I don't think you were concentrating hard enough."

It was tricky to hear him over the deafening rush of air, but she managed to get the gist of what he was saying and quieted down, squeezing her eyes shut when the rough air became too painful. He seemed...quite unconcerned (the less optimistic side of her was scoffing that he _would_ be, the lucky bastard was already dead), so perhaps they weren't in any immediate danger.

It was hard to believe that with her clothes whipping up all around her and her heart lodged somewhere around her esophagus, though, so she lifted her head to yell some more. "We're gonna hit the ground!"

He spat a strand of her hair out of his mouth. "There is no ground."

"_What?_"

"There is no – Christ, look around, will ya? Do I have to explain everything?"

Assessing her situation was sounding like a very dangerous and sanity-compromising idea. But Lydia had never been one to ignore the dangerous, so she tentatively cracked a watering eye open and craned her neck to look down.

It was eerily similar to her mental vision of hell, – if hell even existed, she didn't know anymore – air hot and sticky and orangey-red. The sight of it rushing past her was enough to make her suck in a gasp as her stomach tumbled, but then she felt cool arms firmly encircle her waist and stay there. She glanced up at him uncertainly, but he was looking past her, down to where they were falling. She eventually dragged her eyes away to mimic his.

It was...she wasn't even sure it was air surrounding them, but she was breathing, so it had to be. Every once in a while they passed a thick, moist object that could pass for a cloud – they dropped through one and she thought she might suffocate.

Beetlejuice was right. It went on forever.

She was trying not to panic. She really was. But the knowledge that they were dropping through_ nothing_ did not sit well.

The arms around her waist tightened. She chose to ignore them.

"What do we do now?" She yelled with as much coolness and dignity as she could muster. He didn't need to know that she felt like she was going _out of her fucking mind_.

"...try again." The way he hesitated before answering did not help, but she didn't mention it.

She buried her face into the front of his shirt, feeling the way he stiffened. Whatever. She was scared and he was there. She shut her eyes and pictured the Neitherworld, Beetlejuice's home. She had no idea what it looked like, but all she had to do was think about it for this to work. She hoped. (It hadn't last time.) She took two deep breaths. "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!"

The roaring stopped. Her feet slammed into solid ground and her knees almost buckled from the force.

She didn't move. Her hands were aching from gripping his jacket for so long, and she was intensely aware of the way he was still holding her. Still, she didn't move, afraid that if she did reality would crack into a thousand glittering facets and she would be falling again.

Then there was a stunning flash of light and sound. It filled her ears until she couldn't hear but she could, because Beetlejuice was cursing and pulling her, and she stumbled after him like a blind puppy. Whatever it was rushed past, and she managed to catch a glimpse of exhaust before it rounded a curve and sped out of sight.

"...was that a...car?" She asked when she had finally found her voice.

"Yeah."

Lydia took a moment to wrap her mind around that – dead people drove cars? Couldn't they just poof everywhere they wanted? – and her eyes automatically dropped to the ground. They were standing on a road. Her eyes followed it in the opposite direction the car had gone, around a hundred twists and curves, and lighted on what looked like the crappiest hotel she had ever seen.

"What is _that?_"

"That, babes, is my house." He sounded ridiculously pleased with himself.

"...it's beautiful."

"I like to think so."

He was holding her hand. She decided to let it slide – it wasn't groping, technically. She couldn't quite explain to herself why it bothered her so much.

He tugged her, and when she didn't respond he tugged harder. She let herself be pulled along towards the crooked building, pace gradually quickening to match his. It looked so...old. And rickety. And decrepit and abandoned and God, she wanted to see it. She forced herself not to start jogging.

Apparently this was a wasted effort (or Beetlejuice really was just one perceptive bastard) because he smirked at her. "Eager much, babes?"

"...yes."

He grinned and walked faster. She happily complied.

"By the way...what happened to those assholes in the attic?" He asked offhandedly.

"Barbara and Adam. They're gone," she said automatically. Then she tensed. Then she blinked.

She had completely forgotten about them.

That had been...she had practically gone into an emotional coma over them, and they hadn't even passed her mind in over a month. The realization made her grateful, and then it made her cringe, because, well, they were kind of her parents. Children weren't supposed to forget about their parents.

Granted, most children didn't have a malicious poltergeist distracting them.

Most children had it good.

She glanced ahead at the dusty house, then at the man beside her, twitchy with excitement.

Kind of.

"Okay, babes, close your eyes," he said, gravelly voice interjecting harshly into her thoughts.

"Are you serious?"

"C'mon!" He whined at her.

She almost started giggling, but clamped down on the reflex immediately. She obediently slid her eyes shut, sighing. She felt him tug her hand, and they started walking again.

"Hey, do you have like, real estate here?" She asked curiously, trying not to be too obvious about the hesitant way her feet felt around every time she took a step.

"...huh?" He sounded genuinely confused.

"I mean, do you go to open houses and fix yours all up for resale and then get depressed when no one wants it? Do you have a shaky market?"

"We..._what? _No, we pretty much stay in the same house for all eternity."

"Oh," she said. "Doesn't that get boring?"

"They're dead. They're gonna be bored no matter what they do."

"So death really does suck."

"Not for me."

She smiled. "Are we there yet? Your driveway is massive."

"Almost. 'n it's a road."

"Going to your house?"

"Yeah."

"...this place is weird."

She heard him laugh. "But you love this kind of crap."

"Yeah."

"Okay. Are your eyes closed?"

"_Yes_, they're closed."

"Keep 'em that way."

His hand suddenly left hers, and she had a brief moment of foresight. (She must really be stupid.) Then she heard creaking, and what sounded like a door being pushed open. Suddenly he was back, insistently pushing at her shoulders. She took a step forward, then another, then one more, and felt a rush of cool air hit her at the same time he said, "Stop." She opened her eyes.

It took her vision a second to adjust because as soon as she started looking Beetlejuice was busily shoving the immense door shut behind her, and the only non-neonish source of light was the strange purpley sunlight flowing through the sparse windows. She blinked rapidly, because dammit she wanted to see, and sneezed before she could help it. Then again.

"You okay?" He asked.

"There's dust everywhere!" She exclaimed, surprised by how marveling she sounded.

"Yeah, well, I've been _away_ for a while," he said, tone accusatory. She shot him a glare. Cry her a river, she never asked him to jump dimensions after her. Then she spotted a moldy-looking couch, and her attention was abruptly averted.

Beetlejuice's home. Well, it wasn't a place of magical wonder and hope or anything. But it was dimly lit (by the strange, glowy couch she noticed), and had furniture jumbled everywhere. Most of everything was either a faded, dusty color or bright neon, and she found herself strangely drawn to the effect. Her hands itched for a camera, or, or, some _paint_. Yeah.

"This is so cool," she breathed, hungrily drinking it all in.

"You like it?" He asked, sounding weirdly happy.

"Yeah," she said eagerly. "Wait. Is that a tv?"

"Uh-huh."

"I thought you said everyone was just bored."

"Well no one really watches is for entertainment...'s more of a habit."

"Is that a_ snake_?" She asked, pointing.

"Lamp."

"Does it turn into a snake when you turn it on?" She could hardly breath.

"...no."

...damn. But there was what looked like a kitchen over that way, and she turned to him, smiling. "Can I have a tour?"

He just looked at her, expression startled, before his face melted back into its usual smugness. "Sure, babes."

She pranced off without invitation, hearing his loping footsteps follow.

"Kitchen," he stated when they reached the room filled with purple counters and green cabinets and, and – Beetlejuice had a _kitchen_. What did he do in here? Did he make sandwiches and Kraft mac 'n cheese everyday? Did he have a favorite cereal? Or did he cook? Was he good at cooking?

"I don't really use it much," he said, as if he could see every thought she had scrawled across her face. "I only get around to eating when I feel like it."

"What? I thought you loved food."

"...when there's nothing else to do. 'm trying to keep this waistline, actually."

She was laughing before she could stop herself, because, well, _what the fuck_? She could remember his paunchy torso well enough, her mental picture of their first real-sized meeting was _exceedingly clear_, but dead people got fat? She broke into fresh peals of laughter, clutching her hands to her stomach. Beetlejuice was dieting! He cared about his appearance! _What was this?_

She wasn't sure how she ended up so close to the floor, but it was right in front of her face, this speckly red color that had her in hysterics all over again. Could no one here color-coordinate, or was this just a Beetlejuice trait?

_No one_. There were other people here. There were dead people here, because this was the afterlife, and _oh God oh God_, she was in the afterlife and she wasn't dead, and she couldn't take it all in. So she laughed and laughed and wow, Beetlejuice had gotten so. quiet.

She came back to herself slowly, laughs dying off into broken giggles and then hiccups, then she was quiet. She stayed there, doubled over with her forehead resting against the floor and breathed slowly. It wasn't until she felt a large hand touch her back that anyone said anything.

"Um. Babes?"

He sounded hesitant, and a little unnerved, and that was what really confirmed to her that yes, she had just almost had a breakdown. She sat up slowly, eyes pointed downwards. "I'm fine."

"...okay?"

She pushed herself up to her feet, eyes darting around uncertainly. He was staring at her like he had no idea what to make of her and her sporadic, random collapse. A mottled blush leapt up her neck and to her cheeks.

"Can I see the upstairs?" She mumbled. He dumbly nodded, and she turned away.

She got all the way back to the living room before he came after her, arms flailing wildly. "Wait wait wait wait wait. What was that?"

"I thought it was funny," she said blankly. "Your dieting, I mean."

"It looked like you were crying."

Her hands flew up to feel her face. "I was not!" She said, horrified.

"Well it looked like it," he said petulantly. "An' it wasn't even that funny!"

"It was too! And how would you know anyways, you're _dead!_"

She saw the click in his expression, the sudden comprehension as he went from gaping to speculative. "It that what's eating you? Me being dead?"

"I – no!" She babbled. "I just – this is so weird!"

"You don't...like it here?" He asked, and she could hear she could hear the confusion in his voice, the struggle to understand. Her mind boggled. Why did he_ care_? Why did he try so hard to _get _her?

"I love it," she said honestly. "But, I mean. Everyone's dead."

"...so?"

"It..." She paused, mentally grappling to somehow articulate all the excitement and pleasure and unease into something comprehendible. "I feel like I'm...cheating. I'm running around in the afterlife with a dead guy just because I feel like it."

"Cuz I offered," he interrupted. She gave him an annoyed look. He grinned, sweeping one hand grandly out before him. "Continue."

She took a moment to get her train of thought back. "Just...it goes against the laws of nature. It shouldn't be feasible."

"Shouldn't be," he repeated flatly, and something in his tone made her instantly want to take her explanation back. She backpedaled.

"No, I mean, I really, really love it. You have no idea. I'm just kind of...overwhelmed that it's possible."

His expression shifted and he just barely angled himself away from her. "Yeah, about that..."

"What?"

"See..." He stopped and squinted at her, like he was trying to size up her reaction.

"_What?_"

"I'm not really sure if it's allowed or not...you being here."

"I'm not allowed?" She echoed blankly. "You mean I'm here against the law?"

"See, that's the thing," he said slowly, still leaning slightly back like he was afraid she was going to launch herself at him. "We don't really...have laws."

"But...you told me you did," she reminded him. "You said that's why I would be safe here."

"We do have laws," he elaborated. "...kinda. A few. But mostly we just have, y'know rules. An' they're more general guidelines."

"And is 'Don't bring live people to the Neitherworld' a guideline?" She asked slowly.

"...it's probably a law."

"_Beetlejuice!_"

"Hey!" He started to leap at her but stopped himself, leaving about a foot of space between them while he gesticulated erratically. "Quit that!"

"Why would you bring me here if it's against the law?" She demanded.

"I thought you'd_ like_ it!" he snarled.

"Not if I'm going to get executed over it!"

"You won't," he said impatiently. "I will."

"I don't want you to be executed either!" She exclaimed. "Why, why would you do this if the consequences were – what?" She broke off, because he was giving her the weirdest look and it made her uneasy. He _always did that_.

"Oh, I see," he said, lips slowly curving upwards. "You don't want me to be executed."

"Well – no. And how would that even work anyways?"

Obviously she hadn't been paying enough attention to his voice or body language or something, because suddenly he was pressed more or less up against her, one hand shoved in his pocket and the other coming up to toy with her hair. She blinked rapidly. "I'd be exorcized. Let's not get off-topic, though."

"Um." Topic? She couldn't concentrate on the topic when was looking at her like that, like he – well, like he wanted to thoroughly rape her. Or when he was close enough to feel the coolness almost radiating off him, and smell his staticy earth smell and see with muted clarity how very green his eyes were. This was momentous, she could tell, pivotal. Then she opened her mouth and ruined it. "Shouldn't you smell corpsey?"

He blinked, looking startled, and she felt briefly pleased with herself for disarming him so easily. "What?"

"You know, you're a dead person? A corpse?"

His face took on a pained look. "Lyds? Poltergeist."

"Same thing," she said offhandedly, and even managed a little shrug. She wanted him to move – she didn't like how they were almost but not touching and the twisty hot feeling she got in her stomach whenever one of his fingers brushed her face. It was – uncomfortable.

"No, not the same thing!" He said, sounding offended. "My corpse is what's back in the firstlife rotting in some reeds somewhere."

"Spirit, then."

"_Poltergeist._ There's a difference."

Her sidetracking strategy didn't seem to be working. True, he wasn't looking at her with that peculiar twist to his lips or his eyes all half-lidded anymore, but he _still wasn't moving_. If anything he seemed to be getting comfortable.

"...Barbara and Adam are ghosts?" She managed.

"Yeah. I'm different."

"Oh...hey, can I see the upstairs now?" She tried desperately.

He grinned widely. "Anxious, babes?"

"Excited," she corrected, knowing she was lying out her ass and he could probably tell.

But he just stepped lightly away from her as if he hadn't been practically rubbing on her a second ago and started towards an old, cobwebby spiraling staircase crammed behind what looked like an ancient record player. She slowly followed after him.

"You listen to music?" She asked quietly.

His eyes flicked briefly to a stack of records at the bottom of the stairs. "Nope."

"Liar," she huffed, and saw a corner of his toothy grin appear.

The upstairs was more or less a darker, carpeted version of the downstairs.

"One bedroom, a bunch of rooms I just dump stuff in, and an attic," he said briskly. "What first?"

"Is it interesting stuff?"

"Not really."

"Bedroom."

"Tryin' to tell me something?"

"...you really want me to trap you here, don't you?"

"...'s over that way."

She wandered over to the only room that didn't have a closed door and stuck her head in. It was too dark to see, and, struck with belated inspiration, she felt around the wall for a light switch.

Her fingers bumped something hard and knobby, and the room was flooded with dim greenish light. She blinked a few times, and then zeroed in on the only prominent piece of furniture in the room. "That's a coffin."

"Yes," he said politely. "It is. Wanna make something of it?"

"Maybe later," she said, already moving to examine it. "This hardly has any padding at all."

"Oh, yeah, well, it really fucks with my lower back."

She ignored him, running a hand up its shiny black side. Her palm came away fuzzy with dust. "Nice."

"Hey, I keep my house really clean and shit when I'm actually here, you know," he spluttered.

She shot him a lazy grin over her shoulder. "Really. Do you wear an apron?"

"Maybe gloves if 'm in the mood."

"I see." She looked around. "No bookshelf?"

"Do I _look_ like I read?"

"You're missing out," she chided.

"Yeah, whatever. You done in here or what?"

"No, I'm not. Do you have ADD or something?" She spotted a night stand, and another tv. She was dying to dig through his closet, but that seemed just a bit invasive. Not that he probably cared much about his personal privacy, but. "Do you have an alarm clock or anything?"

"Don't need one. I've got a watch. By the way, you've been here for two hours."

She froze. "Are you serious?"

"No, I'm joking on account of that would be so hilarious."

Well...there wasn't any particular reason to panic. Her parents weren't likely to notice her absence until she didn't show up for dinner, and even then they would hopefully assume she was out with friends. (Delia had taken to constantly harassing Lydia about having David over. Never mind that he was a borderline violent mood-swinger, her mother wanted pretty grandchildren.) Still...it would be wise to head home. Even though she didn't want to.

Beetlejuice was watching her when she turned to face him, biting her lip remorsefully. He smiled. "Gotta go?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "...same way I got here?"

"Yup." He strode forward and grasped her hand. She was starting to suspect this wasn't actually necessary to jump back and forth between worlds, but he had started whistling and staring at the ceiling, so her suspicious look was lost on him.

She had no desire whatsoever to get stuck in the sweltering, groundless in-between place again. (She would have to ask about it later.) So she closed her eyes and took a couple of calming breaths. She concentrated and brought back the woods, all covered with shimmery specks of now dying sunlight. Pinestraw. A poor, mutilated stump covered in initials.

She opened her mouth, and faltered.

She could leave him here. He had promised to chase her, but that didn't mean she couldn't _run_ until she figured something out. Figured safety out. Did they really have to be touching for her to take him with her? Or did she just have to think hard enough to separate them?

He noticed her sudden silence, and stopped whistling. She could feel him watching her.

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice."

There was a small pop, and a vague sensation of heat. She almost panicked, but then suddenly she could smell pine, and just barely hear water trickling in a creek somewhere. She peeled her eyes open.

Beetlejuice took a moment to look around in amusement, then grinned down at her. "You did it right this time."

She glanced at their linked hands, and wondered if he was going to insist they stay that way for the entire trip home.

"Yeah."


	8. In Which Jack Shit Makes Sense

_Look, I said I was sorry, and I meant it. There was no reason for you to freak out and run away. So, I mean, what's your problem?_

* * *

_I forgot to sign my last note. But I'm pretty sure you know who I am because you keep blinking at me, so…..how are u? I'm good. But look, I really am sorry, I swear. Forgive me?_

* * *

_Okay, this silent treatment stuff is getting a little old. C'mon. I'm getting really tired of it._

* * *

_Do you like me? Check yes or no._

* * *

Lydia slowly lowered her head to her desk and wondered about the irony of life. Was someone laughing at her? Was there some divine force, somewhere, that thought her and her problems were infinitely hilarious?

She peeked to the right through the crack in her arms, and, sure enough what a surprise, found ever-present intense brown eyes staring back at her, flecked with hazel and creepy as hell. She only had two classes with him, but he was definitely making the most of them.

This was such a waste of trees.

Prudence briefly abandoned her battered copy of _Of Mice and Men_ to read David's latest installment. "He really does like you, doesn't he?" She commented mildly in her high, quiet voice. "Which one are you going to check?"

"We're not in the third grade," she said crabbily. She half-wanted to write in her own box, _Fuck You_, but felt that would be immature. Not to mention provocative. Her best course of action was probably to ignore him, which she had been steadily and without result doing for the past three days. "I'm not going to exchange notes with him all day."

"He's staring at you," Prudence said simply.

"I know." He was probably hanging onto their every word.

Prudence glanced at him then at her book, then placed it face down on her desk, apparently deciding to fully immerse herself in the subject. "Why don't you just go out with him?"

"I…don't like him," Lydia said, surprised at the other girl's uncharacteristic interest.

She was also uncomfortably aware that the person of discussion was boring a fizzling hole into the side of her head, protected only by her curtain of hair. He certainly wasn't shy, at least.

She didn't understand him. She didn't understand his sudden avid intensity and his unpredictable personality swings. She couldn't connect them with the sweet, earnest boy he was most of the time. It was unsettling, the way he could subtly flit in-between roles without batting an eye.

"Why not?" Prudence asked patiently.

He scared her.

"I just don't."

Prudence was quiet for a long time, to a point that Lydia thought the conversation was over. Then she spoke, slowly and deliberately. "There's someone else, isn't there?"

"What?" Lydia was startled into laughing. Someone else? Like who, her nonexistent boyfriend? "No, of course not. Where did you get – ?"

"_Miss Deetz_."

Prudence whirled efficiently to face her desk and buried her nose back in her book. Lydia barely had time to feel mildly betrayed before her teacher was standing in front of her, all disapproval and teacher-esque irritation.

Lydia was glad that it was the last period of the day, because she was getting increasingly tired of weaving in and out of her surrounding student body to elude the ever-present flash of brown hair. At least at home she had _privacy_.

Well, sort of.

The bell rang, and she was out of her seat and headed towards the door in a dark streak of motion.

"Lydia! Hey, Lydia!"

Of course he was following her. What on earth was it about her that he found so captivating? She'd hardly even had an actual conversation with him. She sped up and zipped towards the exit, side-stepping a burly boy with a buzz cut and bursting outside into the frigid air. Winter was in full throttle.

"Lydia? Wait up."

She veered toward the bike rack and realized, with a rush of dismay, that she would have to waste a few precious seconds struggling with her lock. _Ohhh, shit_.

She all but sprinted over and dropped to her knees, fingers already deftly spinning the old knob around. She could hear him crashing after her. She lined up the arrow with the last number and yanked the lock down; it clicked with the humming promise of freedom –

– that was promptly crushed by a thin, tanned hand crashing down on her wrist. She instinctively jerked it away, ignoring the immediate pain from the unnatural way she twisted it.

David acted like he didn't notice. "Lydia," he panted, face red and sweaty and reproachful, like her running away from him was some incredibly rude occurrence. "Geeze, what's wrong with you?"

She stood up and gripped her handlebars, not bothering to zip her lock safely in her backpack. She clutched it in her white-knuckled hand instead.

"Stop following me," she said shortly.

"What?" He sounded genuinely surprised. "C'mon, don't do that. I was wondering if – "

"No."

"But – "

"No."

"Lyds, don't – "

"Don't call me that," she snapped suddenly. He blinked at her, clearly shocked.

She started to wheel her bike around, and got about two yards away before he came after her. Her bike suddenly jerked to a stop, and she almost stumbled.

She didn't turn around. "Let go of my bike."

"Listen to me."

"I already have," she snarled, surprising herself with the venom in her voice. "Now let go of my bike."

He was silent. She gave her bike an experimental push, and was surprised when it moved. She started to glance behind her, then thought better of it and took off, getting a running start before she swung her leg over her seat and mounted her bike, legs stretching towards the pedals.

She waited until she had gone around two curves before looking back. David was nowhere in sight.

The ride home was harshly cold but invigorating, and she found herself in a reasonably good mood as she pedaled red-faced up her driveway, smoothly cruising into her garage with practiced ease.

Her father was still at work and her mother was out doing who knew what, probably shopping, so it would appear that she had the house to herself. A few years ago, this might have been cause for her to actually venture downstairs and spend an undisturbed afternoon sketching or reading. As it was, she snatched an apple from the kitchen and headed straight to her room.

He was floating just above her bed, arms and legs crossed. He opened one eye and it flicked immediately to her snack. "You bring enough to share with the class?"

"I figured you wouldn't want one," she said, walking over and flopping face-down onto her oversized pillow.

"You figured right."

He let himself fall, landing beside her with a dull _unf_. She bounced twice, then threw him an annoyed look. "One day I'm going to fly off and break my neck, and then you'll feel like an asshole."

He rolled onto his back and stretched, face contorting with pleasure. "Yeah, whatever. I'll just find some way to bring you back." He pressed the back of his hand against her arm. "You feel like you're…almost a normal temperature. It that cold outside?"

"Sweet. And, yes," she said, and bit off a generous chunk of apple. She pushed it to the back of her mouth and crushed it between her molars, letting the juice rush out over her tongue.

Beetlejuice had lifted his head to watch her. "That's sexy," he said earnestly. "Do it again."

She swallowed and stuck her tongue out at him. "Perv." She hesitated, then placed the apple carefully on her nightstand. She could eat it later, when he wasn't staring at her. A little browning never hurt anybody…

He moaned disappointedly. "_Why?_"

"Ask me how my day went."

He sighed, then perked up, smiling at her sweetly. "How did you day go, Lydia?"

"Prudence thinks I'm seeing someone."

"Oh. That's…interesting."

"You don't even care, do you?"

"Nope. Tell me anyway."

"Okay," she agreed. "Well, David keeps asking me out, you know – "

"And you won't let me rip his cock off, I know – "

"And she thinks that I must have some weird abstract reason for not saying yes."

"…and you're saying you don't?"

"Have some weird abstract reason?" she yawned. "Can you point one out to me?"

He squinted at her, eyebrows rising incredulously. "Well, fuck, lemme think."

She looked at him blankly, then had a sudden rush of comprehension. "You don't count."

"Why not?"

"Because…because I would have said no anyways, even if you hadn't been here."

He gave her an unimpressed look. "Really."

"Yeah," she said stubbornly. This conversation was heading into dangerous territory. "Really."

"So me being here has nothing to do with you telling that kid to fuck off?"

"Well. Yeah."

He sighed. "Lyds, you ever wonder if maybe you're a complete dumbass?"

She cringed away, trying to not feel hurt. She was so _sensitive_ lately. She missed the days when she could just push all her feelings under and curl in on her defense of _everyone else sucks_, projecting her sullenness outwards to ensure she would be left alone. It hadn't been enjoyable, necessarily, but at least she hadn't been plagued with the constant sense of being stripped bare, left out in the open and vulnerable.

He noticed her sudden silence. "Hey."

"What?" She asked defensively, glaring at the wall.

He reached out unperturbedly and grabbed her chin, turning her head to face his. She stared stonily back, wondering if her deadpan look was lost on him when it was upside down. "This is getting a little old, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he said casually. "It is."

Then he reached out with his big man hands and grabbed her around the waist, and she found herself suddenly dragged on him. Onto him. On top of him. Wait, what the fuck?

She started to scramble away – what the _fuck_ – but he held onto her, keeping her firmly in place over his stomach, legs resting neatly on either side of him. She stared at him.

"What are you doing?" She demanded, stupefied. Well, not really stupefied at all, but she didn't want to even consider that. This. What he was doing.

"Nuthin'," he said. "Don't move for a second."

He let go of her waist – she really considered making a break for it but knew he could catch her without breaking a sweat – and reached up to cup her face in both hands, just rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks and looking at her, slowly and relaxedly. She felt something deep inside her unfurl hotly, spreading up her chest and blooming outwards. And his hands were cold…what was – this wasn't okay. She couldn't –

"Lyds?"

"…yes?"

"Stop squirming."

"Why?"

"Just…don't."

"Beej?" She squeaked.

"Mmm?"

"Remember back when you first showed up, that first day?"

"Uh…yeah?"

"You promised you wouldn't rape me."

"I was on top then."

"Why are you doing this?" She whispered.

He sighed. "Lyds, why do you think?"

Then he dragged her head down to his and kissed her.

She couldn't think. _Where had this come from?_ What was he – she thought things had been good, she'd thought they'd been getting along. Friends? Yes, definitely, maybe – almost. But he was – _this wasn't what friends did_.

Of course he acted like a total perv around her, but she'd thought he was _kidding_. Or at least, he had been lately. They hadn't been…friends when he first showed up.

He was patient, letting her come to her own conclusions while he held her, molding his mouth against hers. He was still holding her face, not gently, but loosely enough that she could break away if she wanted to. Giving her a choice.

She rolled her eyes to look at his wrist and saw every single one of his tendons straining out. _Oh_. Apparently he was trying harder than she'd thought.

She found herself thinking, in some bewildered little corner of her mind, that this was nothing at all like being kissed by David.

Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted one hand from where it rested beside his head and placed it weightlessly on his chest. She felt his lips curve under hers and clenched her fingers into his jacket in a sudden rush of electricity.

She wasn't exactly sure what was going on, what she was experiencing – well, yeah, she knew what was _going on_, but she sure as hell couldn't explain to herself why. She was more or less certain she was not supposed to be here, on her bed, kissing – no, allowing – Beetlejuice to kiss her.

Yet she was, willingly, and quite happily, and it was with that realization that there came a loud pop and a sudden gust of wind, and she realized they weren't alone. Beetlejuice stiffened under her and tore himself away from her lips to stare at the intruders, already rising to sit up –

"_Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!_"

And Lydia found herself alone on her bed, grasping at nothing but air.

* * *

_WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK_.

Beetlejuice hunched over, overcome by a coughing fit from the dust disturbed by his sudden deposition on his couch. When he had control of himself he sat up and looked around, already knowing where he was but figuring he should probably check anyway.

…his house. Yep.

Fuck.

Goddammit, fuck.

He'd had her, he was almost fucking certain. She hadn't pulled away or hit him or acted scared or anything – he hadn't wanted that, he'd tried really hard not to overwhelm her even though his first instinct had been to roll her under him and molest her until she couldn't remember her own name. He wanted her to be coherent, to be able to choose. To want him.

And they had been teetering right on the edge of her giving in until those motherfuckers had shown up, _goddammit what the fuck _–

He jumped off the couch and started pacing, movement jerky and erratic. Well, what did he do now? Spy on her? Follow her around? Gather his concentration and blow her entire house to kingdom fucking come?

Well, no, that option had kind of gone out the window the second he started giving a shit.

She had kissed him back.

He faltered and half-stumbled, then resumed his back-and-forth motion, path getting shorter and shorter with each turn. She had kissed him back. Well, not really. Kind of. Close enough, to all extents and purposes. She hadn't sent him back,_ they_ had.

She would probably be inconceivable upset with him if he exorcised them out of retaliation, too. So where did that leave him?

He stopped in the middle of his living room and scowled at the ceiling. That pretty much left him completely helpless. Until she called him (and she would, she had to), he had to sit tight, which he was _not_ good at doing.

But…

He would. He would sit here and be patient, like a good little boy.

He would wait, even though he fucking hated waiting, if it was for her.


	9. In Which Walls are Made

Needless to say, it was not a pleasant feeling to come face to face with your adoptive parents just seconds after experiencing the most sexually charged moment of your life.

Frankly, it was kind of awkward.

Lydia didn't have any time to be horrified and wonder if her panties were wet, however, because Barbara rushed forward with a strangled cry and flung her arms around her, pulling her into a locked embrace. Lydia was so caught up in the general _what-the-fuck _surrealism of the moment to offer any kind of reciprocation, much less grasp what was going on. It was Adam's silent presence, his perfect _I-love-you-sweetie-but-I'm-a-man-and-I'm-uncomfortable-hugging-you_ vibe behind her that made it all click into place.

"You came back," she whispered.

And, yet again, she was hurled back onto the fuckered up rollercoaster that was her emotions, and found herself crying for what had to be the tenth time in a month.

* * *

It was always fun to pretend you were still in elementary school and your parents paid attention to you and just _be_, sniffling and helpless and cuddled. Lydia weighed her options, and decided to let things stay this way a little longer. Sooner or later, she going to have to suck it up and break the news that they had just sent her…whatever he was to another dimension more or less against her preference, but for now she would let Barbara stroke her hair and wait. They probably felt the same way, because though she could tell from their worried little glances, the slight tenseness to Adam's shoulders they were definitely thinking about it, they didn't bring it up. This was their reunion. She was confused and mortified and a tiny bit scared, but it could wait.

(She damn well hoped he could wait. What was she going to do if he couldn't?)

"How did you do it?" she murmured, head resting against Barbara's breast. "Come back, I mean."

Adam answered, maybe because Barbara was so engrossed with holding her, but probably so he had something to do other than perch demi-awkwardly on the bed (the same bed she had just been accosted in, _but she wasn't going to think about that_) beside them, one arm around Barbara's shoulders and the other resting on his knee.

"We met with Juno," he said softly, and it struck her as strange, how _quiet _everything was.

"They made us wait forever first," Barbara said, voice scratchy with irritation. Lydia was glad that someone was taking the liberty of adding some dissonance to the atmosphere. It was too comfortable; stagnant.

"Not that long," Adam conceded wryly. "But it was a while. She was unhappy to see us."

"Why?"

"She's unhappy to see everyone. And, because we had ties to, you know." He paused awkwardly, and his eyes flitted to her face before looking away. "But Barbara talked to her – "

"I yelled at her. Overbearing bitch."

"…yes. And Juno finally gave in, and offered us these tickets – "

"_Why?_"

"Barbara convinced her that we did more good than harm. More or less."

Lydia took a moment to wrap her mind around the fact that the afterlife had a reward system. Not a difficult task, considering everything else she'd learned to accept, but she kept getting caught on the one word.

"Tickets? Not ticket?"

The warm, plush atmosphere abruptly hardened and twisted into something a lot less comfortable.

"They're only good for one week each."

Lydia had already suspected there was some kind of limit, and she had started preparing herself for hearing it the second she noticed Adam's kneejerk reluctance, but it still hit her a little hard, and she felt her heart sink down to her stomach. She swallowed several times, frustrated when her throat caught.

"…and…how many do you have?"

"Ninety. One for – " he broke off, expression strangled.

"Each year until I die," she mused unperturbedly. Well, that wasn't bad, all things considered.

"Don't say it like that," Barbara begged, and Lydia felt an immediate stab of regret. Just because the idea of her old dusty body lying unresponsive in a bed somewhere didn't disturb her that much didn't mean other people were okay with it. Other…dead people.

…it was no wonder people like David were attracted to her.

When had that happened? When had she started to subconsciously consider life and death to be on level planes? Like it didn't really matter either way…

Well, it didn't. To her credit, death apparently sucked just as much as the firstlife, except with more colors. Colors that she just happened to be especially partial to.

Then again, she had her parents to consider. And Prudence was nice. And, well, she kind of liked school a little bit…when she wasn't being harassed. She didn't have Drama or Photography with David anyways, so…

"We were thinking…we could visit you on your birthday, every year, unless there was an emergency…." Barbara said hesitantly.

Lydia blinked and realized they had taken her contemplative silence as unenthusiasm, and felt her throat constrict with guilt. She loved them so much it hurt, sometimes.

"I missed you," she murmured, and squeezed the soft, sloping contour of her waist, breathing in her familiar scent of fabric softener and, underneath that, moist soil. Adam lifted his hand and rested it, comforting in its even heaviness, on her back.

"So did we."

They stayed liked that for a long time. Underneath all the fuzziness and mind-numbing sense of security, Lydia was meanwhile halfway mulling over the best way to bring up Beetlejuice. She was having some difficulty. _Yeah, about sending him back…we were making out for a reason._

Making out. Ugh. Was she that girl now?

…well, who the fuck cared if she was? She was overdue anyway.

Then she remembered the coarse, grainy feel of his lips on hers, and his soft grunt that seemed to have slipped out against his will, and the feel of his cold breath rushing out his nostrils over her chin, making goose bumps prickle up all down her neck and…and…

Her stomach shriveled in on itself. It was all she could do not to make a tiny peeping noise and hide her face in her hands.

So…so he had kissed her. So what.

So that was actually a big deal. A big, huge, fucked up deal.

She'd never had a boyfriend before. She had never even gone on a date before. The height of her opposite-sex shenanigan experience had been that memorable afternoon when David forcibly shoved his tongue down her throat without so much as a Hello, may I? Boys (and people in general), had always seemed too blasé to interest her, and, she was sure, vice versa.

(So it figured her first real romantic entanglement would be with a dead guy. She would probably find it funny, years later, when the absence of his presence wasn't busily emotionally picking her apart.)

In conclusion, her wisdom amounted to nothing, her trust in him was shaky at best, and she still wasn't entirely sure how the hell she felt about the whole thing. It had been all well and good to go with flow when he was actually with her and being all…persuasive. Now, in the arms of the two people who had more or less picked her decaying life off the ground and pieced it back together without even being asked, she was less sure. In retrospect, it seemed incredibly stupid of her, to let herself fall into such a vulnerable position.

He had put himself in _her_ hands willingly enough.

(He was also a psychopathic poltergeist who could kill off half the population with little more than a howdy-do. She was an underweight teenager. _Duly noted._)

What now?

…what a loaded question.

Call him back. She had to. She owed it to him, at least. And, at most, she really, really liked the fragile, flexible, unnamable bond they'd derived – she wasn't sure what the hell it was, necessarily, but she liked it. Liked him. He really was funny when he wasn't being a dick. Really, he was. And he was nice, in his own way, plus she could always count on him if she ever decided to get depressed and wibble about, or, hey, if she just wanted to reassure herself that she did in fact have a vagina and some people found her attractive _whoa where the fuck were her thoughts going_. She needed to watch that.

But. Letting him out. Right.

Barbara shifted. "Lydia?"

And apparently, they were thinking along the same lines. Lydia wondered, not for the first time, if dying granted you with a sixth sense.

"Why was…_he _here?"

Lydia closed her eyes and reveled in her last seconds as a child, safe and protected and responsibility-free. Then she sat up, pulling out of Barbara's arms. Adam's hand on her back stayed. She was glad.

"We kind of need to talk about that."

* * *

They were good listeners. They didn't yell or interrupt, even though she knew they were on the edge of horrified at some points. (Specifically, every point from when he showed up to when they did.)

She almost glossed over their trip to the Neitherworld. She hesitated, teetering on the edge of what was true and what would invoke their shame-inspiring disappointment. Then she plunged on, because they needed to know. It was essential that they understand this, that he was safe. (More or less. And not in any way stable, but no one would ever think to call her picky.) And it hurt, a little, as she watched Barbara's lips get smaller and tighter and Adam stopped moving altogether, and she had to work to make herself finish, and not to pretend that all her careful deliberations and reasonings didn't actually amount to pathetically shallow, in retrospect.

It was persuasion. That was what everything came down to. And here, in the present, regurgitating everything that had happened…it sounded so weak and flimsy. Stupid. Irresponsible. Her common sense might as well have not existed.

_But_. But it didn't matter, she needed them to know and him back, if only to demand an explanation from him.

_Takes two to tango_.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. She was so fucked.

Did she really have to be?

Well, not necessarily, but, yes. She didn't _do_ romance. (And even if she did, well, there was no guarantee that was what was really going on. She was a teenage girl, he a grown man. It was easy to see where their separate perceptions might get mixed up.)

Oh God. Was she afraid of commitment, of all the things she could have chosen?

She thought of his expression as he comprehended Barbara and Adam's presence, the surprise, slight narrowing of his eyes, and his rapidly expanding fury, flying up his chest and almost on the verge of bursting out via his throat, and felt some kind of vague fluttering around her chest.

No. She was afraid of getting screwed over.

"Did you…" Adam cleared his throat, trying to eliminate the strain in his voice. "Did you meet anyone during your trip? Did you make any friends?"

Lydia almost burst out laughing. Oh, did she love these people. At least she knew she could always trust them to take a batshit situation and pretend it was normal, for her sake.

"Uh, no, he just showed me around his house," she said sheepishly. "Oh, but I saw a car!"

"Oh. Well, that's nice."

"We only missed you by a couple of weeks," Barbara sighed. "You would think we were meant to wait."

Lydia tried to pretend this didn't make her uncomfortable. She tried really, really hard.

"And after that he brought me home and a couple of weeks came…and…um…thenyoushowedup."

Amazing that she could plough through a recount of offering her safety up to a mad-man, but when it came to kissing him she was all recounted-out. She had to admit, she was a funny creature.

She expected Adam to start talking first, him being more level-headed and less likely to fly into a panic, but it was Barbara. Maybe he was more inclined to the _oh god my baby kissing what_ attitude than she'd assumed.

"Just to clarify," she started, voice exuding determination. Ah, crap. She wasn't getting out of this one. "Your affections were voluntary."

…and since when did Barbara use words like 'clarify' and 'affections'? How upset _was _she?

"Well," she stuttered. "I mean, he kissed _me_, but yeah. I guess. Kinda."

"I see."

"It's not a big deal!" she rushed, immediately upset by Barbara's detached, uncharacteristic tone. "We kissed, but I was just, caught up in the mom…in the…" Words could not describe her reluctance to have this conversation.

"_Yes it is!_" Barbara exploded. "When I come in and see you straddling a psychopath it's a _big deal!_"

Oh, well, there she was. Lydia cringed away from her and reminded herself that they weren't her parents, she could do what she wanted, and it didn't matter what they thought. It didn't help much.

"He's never hurt me," she tried weakly.

Barbara fixed her with a smoldering glare, and it was all she could do not to take cover behind Adam. "He _broke_. Your _arm_."

Well, that. "Not intentionally," she insisted, very un-stealthily forgoing to mention that it had only been an accident because he had been busy threatening her on purpose. Oh, the web they'd weaved together…

"Lydia, do you not get it?" she raged. "He's tricked you!"

"You don't know that!" Lydia shouted back automatically. Inwardly, she rolled her eyes at herself. What on earth was she yelling about? No one knew anything. That was why everyone was angry, herself included.

"Barbara," Adam said quietly. She snapped her head around and opened her mouth, and for a second Lydia thought she was going to attack him too. Then she shut it and settled down, still fuming. He turned to Lydia and looked at her wordlessly. She wondered what he was seeing.

"Lydia, can you tell me something honestly?" he asked, and how the _hell_ was he so calm? How was it possible to be calm right now?

"Sure," she said warily. Getting into an argument with Barbara was one thing. Lying to Adam was something else entirely.

"Do you love him?"

She reeled. What the hell? What kind of a question was that? What was – what had she done to make him – _did she sound like she was in love with him?_

"We're friends," she spluttered. She thought. She hoped. When had she started hoping? Probably around the same second she met him for the first time, if she was completely honest with herself.

_We're friends?_ Yeah, friends that romped around in the bed every once in a while. Wow, was she in for the lecture of her life.

But Adam only looked at her, eyes warm and sad and understanding. It terrified her. What did he understand? Because she hardly understood anything right now.

"Oh, sweetie," he said heavily, and reached out and gathered her up in his arms.

* * *

Okay. Okay, when he said he would wait, he didn't mean this long. What were they doing up there, writing out a contract?

He'd spent the last two hours prowling relentlessly around his house, and he was really getting tired of it. Not that he got sore or anything, but. Yeah. He flopped violently onto his couch and grabbed the remote. Flipped the tv on. A soap featuring two brothers fighting over the same broad came on. Too annoying. He turned it back off.

Too quiet. Back on.

…and what the fuck were they fighting over her for, anyway? She wasn't even that fuckable.

And if Lydia didn't watch it she was going to find herself under that category pretty damn quick, too. Like, super quick. Not that she was particularly up for fucking at the moment, being that she practically had a breakdown if someone so much as held her hand. Actually, hand-holding probably spoke volumes more than pounding her into the floor ever would, considering his nature.

Pounding Lydia. Urg, he was so messed up. Not that he really minded, but there was something to be said for all those people who called him crazy.

And what the fuck was he thinking about all this for, anyway? The thought of putting Lydia in the same situation he'd cajoled hundreds of other women into made him kind of queasy. (Now, putting her into an entirely different situation that involved a lot less dark hotel rooms and animal grunts and more languid caresses and slow, soft coaxing…heh heh. That'd be okay. Which said a lot about his predicament. Ah, what the hell, he just didn't care anymore.)

It was a sad state to be in when his own thought process didn't make sense to himself. He grinned fangily.

And felt it abruptly die as the arousal-cinching possibility of Lydia leaving him there forced its way bodily into the top of his consciousness.

He shrugged it off with a little more difficulty than he liked. Nah. Nahnahnah. She wouldn't.

Unless he'd scared her. She was so young. And fragile, he kept forgetting that. The kind that came hand in hand with the alienatingly deep sensitivity he found himself so unwillingly enamored with.

He settled slowly back on the couch, crossing his ankles with exaggerated deliberateness. She wouldn't.

Really. She wouldn't.

* * *

"Lydia…" her voice changed, became soothing. "Lydia, he's smart, you know that."

"_I'm_ smart," Lydia snapped impatiently.

Barbara remained unmoved. "He's smarter," she told her bluntly.

"No, he's just more of a dick," she argued.

"That's my point," Barbara stressed.

Adam remained seated between them like some kind of strange, silent mediator, expression distant. Probably wondering how deep her apparent affections ran. She tried not to shudder.

"Look, I've spent more than a month with him," she pointed out. "Alone," she added, inwardly cringing. It was like adding salt to a wound, she thought, watching Barbara's expression twist.

"Do other parents have to worry about this? Most parents don't have to worry about this."

_Mine don't_, Lydia thought with detached cynicism, thinking of her thus far ostentatiously unaware biological guardians.

"Well, look, don't you think he would've killed me by now if he was going to?" she cajoled.

"Not if he didn't want Juno to castrate him."

"I really don't think he's that afraid of Juno."

"Why? Because he told you?"

"Barbara," Adam said tiredly.

"Maybe he did," Lydia said evenly, glowering at her. "And besides, he's really not that bad –"

"He's a _psychopath _."

"Girls –"

Damn. She had her there. "Um. Well. He's pretty nice for a psychopath."

"_Because he wants you to let him stay out!_"

"So maybe he does!" Lydia shouted. "_Whatever._ I still owe it to him to at least talk."

"Why?" Barbara demanded. "What's he done for you?"

"Uh – " Carried her two miles to her house, for starters. (It was his fault she had to be carried.) Comforted her. (In a confusing, half-mean kind of way.) Shoved David around. (She would give him that one free.) "Just, a lot of stuff."

"Oh, _Lydia._"

"Oh, _Barbara_," she snarled back before she could stop herself, voice slinging razor-sharp sarcasm through the air. Barbara stopped short, expression conflicted. Sometimes Lydia really hated herself. She couldn't seem to keep all this dark shit that went on in her head on the inside where it belonged.

"Stop," Adam said sharply. Lydia's mouth clamped shut mid-apology. "Just stop."

He sighed, rubbing his eyes. Lydia wondered how tiring it was, sitting between two emotionally charged females and not being able to get a word in edgewise. When he was done he addressed her.

"We can't stop you if you want to call him back."

"Yes we _can_ – "

"But," he continued loudly. "Wait a little while.

Lydia absorbed this carefully. That sounded…doable. Maybe, provided Beetlejuice didn't get too impatient and blow up her entire house this time. "How long is a while?"

"I don't know. Three days. Five. But I want you to sleep on it a few nights."

Whoa. She was thinking more along the lines of hours. She couldn't do that to him; that was so – so mean.

"I can't – do you know how _pissed_ he's going to be?"

And for some godforsaken reason, Adam smiled. "I'm sure he'll understand, given everything you've told us. If he's genuinely interested in your well-being, that is."

Lydia couldn't find any way to argue with that.

* * *

He just had to be patient. Really, he did. The more patient he was, the easier it would be.

So he settled down and watched squinty-eye and buck-brow squabble over she-who-faints-a-lot and told himself to just chill. Relax. So what if it had already been five hours? They were undoubtedly giving Lyds hell up there. She would probably sneakily call him at the first opportunity. He turned the volume up.

Then a day went by.

At some point the TV ended up broken, much to the displeasure of his squawking neighbors.

What the fuck. This was going a little overboard. And by a little he meant a lot. God, he didn't _know_ how to be patient.

It shouldn't be taking this long. Lydia couldn't go a day without eating, much less be able to talk for twenty-four hours straight. What the hell was going on? There was no way they were holding her against her will or anything. They didn't have the balls, what with all that familial love and everything. (Plus that was his job.)

Did Lydia not trust him?

For fuck's sake! What did he have to do to get on her good side? Present his intentions on a platter? Why did these things _happen_ to him?

He fiddled with a stray button he found on the floor, and then impatiently snapped his fingers. It exploded.

And that felt pretty good, so he went ahead and sent his fish tank (vacant for years – there were some skeletons resting around the bottom, actually) flying out the window into his neighbor's yard, to renewed screams of general indignation. He flexed his fingers absently and looked around for something else to destroy.

…on second thought, he didn't want to have to replace everything he owned. He dropped onto the ground with a grunt, folding his legs Indian-style, vaguely noticing that it hurt a little. He hadn't bent his legs too much in years.

Another day rolled around. One of the benefits of being dead was that you could be perfectly still for weeks if you wanted to, and time didn't really have much of an effect on you. He rarely bothered.

So it was strange that he didn't move a muscle.

By the time day three came and went, he was in danger of going bald. And there was this weird, tearing feeling in his chest that he tried not to dwell on.

He should check on her, just to make sure she was okay. He considered it.

He didn't.

She really didn't trust him, did she?

He rolled onto his back, keeping his legs locked firmly in place, only absently noticing when his joints creaked and popped. The couch was just too far away.

She'd ditched him.

It hurt. And he hated to admit it, because he was a fucking poltergeist and she was just a girl, one of thousands, and she didn't have any business hurting him. He didn't have any business allowing it.

But then, he'd know for a while that he was in trouble.

He opened his eyes and looked fuzzily at the ceiling. She'd probably be asleep right now. He wondered is Babs and Co. were hovering over her, making sure she didn't pull anything. (Again. His job. Motherfuckers.)

He sighed, and it felt like everything he was made of was swooshing out through his mouth and mingling with the stagnant air. He crossed his eyes and tried to make himself care about something that didn't have to do with huge eyes and black hair.

He ended up lying motionless on the floor and trying to convince himself he hadn't been abandoned.


	10. In Which Things Explode

"We need to see Juno."

"No. We don't."

"I _know_ you have a problem with this. You can't tell me you're completely fine."

"You think I don't know that? Of course I have a problem with this. For God's sake, the man's crazy. She's less than half his age!"

"Then why won't you _say_ something to her? She won't listen to me."

"Because it's none of our business! Don't give me that look, it's not."

"Oh, right, we're complete non-entities to her. I forgot."

"Don't – you know what I mean. It's not our place to meddle in her…friendships."

"Then whose is? Goddammit, she's a little girl!"

"_I know._ It's sick. He's a bastard. That still doesn't give us the right to tell her what she can or can't do, we're not her parents."

"Her parents are _morons._"

"That's not the point."

"Fuck the point, she's my baby. She's not – she's not his."

"No one ever said she was, calm down."

"They were – they were canoodling on her bed, Adam! _Canoodling!_"

At this point Lydia rolled over and crammed her pillow over her head (with her good-as-new arm – Adam had reluctantly attempted and succeeded to fix it after much wheedling and begging on her part), because as exciting as these late-night arguments were, she didn't want to hear about her canoodling with Beetlejuice. That was awkward enough just thinking about it to herself.

She curled a little tighter around the heavy bolster cushion she'd stolen from the couch and lately taken to sleeping with, for whatever reason. She just…liked cuddling something, and the sense of security that came with it.

And she certainly needed all the security she could get right now.

She'd been feeling rather…antsy, as of late, and she chalked it up the looming milestone of three days. Barbara and Adam were feeling pretty _antsy_ too, and their arguments were happening more and more frequently and becoming progressively more vehement. And she was only catching half of them.

Barbara was still dead-set on chaining her permanently to her bedpost, getting her a paranormal-proof chastity belt, or sending her off to live at a convent. All of the above were okay in her book, too.

Adam was more flexible, but she knew it was killing him to be so. She could see him staring broodily off when he didn't think she was looking. She watched his tendons flex and protrude whenever she halfheartedly tried bringing him up. Adam was being lenient, true, but he didn't want to be.

She curled herself a little tighter, because her room was rather chilly nowadays, which she contributed to the constant deepening of winter. It had snowed yesterday. Everything was covered with a fine dusting of it.

And for some reason the snow reminded her of him, of his sharp straightforwardness and his snappish mannerisms, and that just bothered her.

She'd tried getting his attention once. Twice. Okay, she tried getting his attention at least three or four times an hour. Waited until Barbara and Adam were under the impression she was asleep and it was safe to discuss her, and him, and all the shit that had apparently happened while they were gone, and what the were going to do about it – and barely whispered his name once into the static darkness.

Waited. Waited for him to whisper back, to peer at her from her mirror, to flip her bed over and dump her onto the floor.

He disappointed her on all counts.

Now she tried again, tucking her pillow under her chin and staring blindly at the ceiling. "…Beetlejuice?"

Five seconds. Ten. Ninety.

Well, she thought, rolling over, she couldn't say she blamed him.

Actually…yeah. Yeah, she really, really could.

Because she had Barbara harping at her on one side, and his silent pull on the other, and Adam was just…there, but that just made everything worse because it was a lot harder to feel annoyed and a lot easier to feel guilty when someone told you it was your choice but you could hear their teeth grinding even as they said it. The idea of asking her parents for help was ludicrous, they hadn't even noticed anything strange was going on in the first place, and she didn't have any friends she could express her feelings to . Yeah, "Hey, Prudence, I might be romantically involved with a dead guy," would go down great.

And she still wasn't even sure how exactly to define 'romantic' except she knew that she missed him. And she felt kind of alone without him just absently reclining near her. And her world was suddenly really quiet.

And _he_ was the adult, for fuck's sake, he was centuries older than her and he wouldn't even talk to her like a normal person and she was fifteen, and she shouldn't have to deal with this shit. She should be – she should be going on _dates_, or something, not wondering if a poltergeist really liked her or if he just wanted an easy lay.

But then, the image of her and Beetlejuice at an ice cream bar sharing a milkshake was just profoundly disturbing, so she let it drop.

And this would all be so much easier to sort out if he would just talk to her, the stupid, resentful prick –

Or he could like, hug her or something, that would work too.

She sighed, and snuggled a little deeper under her comforter.

In the hallway the conversation was dying down, volume lowering to a dull murmur. A second later came the silence that told her they were in her room. She focused on breathing evenly in and out, eyes relaxed.

She was bringing him back tomorrow whether they liked it or not.

They were just worried about her, she knew. And she appreciated it. More than she would ever be able to put into words.

But they weren't going to talk her down if they spent the rest of their afterlives trying. She hadn't changed her mind, and she wasn't going to.

Then she just had to figure out how to keep Beetlejuice from killing them…a normal person would be pissed, never mind someone as particularly vindictive as him.

So she breathed in and out and pretended to be asleep, a thousand thoughts curling around her mind and no one to tell them to.

* * *

"What about him…wasn't he holding you captive?"

Lydia paused in thought. Yeah, wasn't he? "I think he kind of gave up on that…"

Barbara wasn't letting her get out of it. "How do you know? Did he ever tell you?"

Lydia scratched her elbow uncomfortably. "He never really tells me anything, he just kind of…expects me to get it."

Barbara closed her eyes, a little sickly. "Lydia, I know you're special, but could you _please_ pick someone else for a boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend…"

Adam, who had been silent up until this point, sighed heavily. "Promise us you won't have sex with him."

"…um."

"Promise."

"…yeah, okay, sure."

He leaned back in her desk chair, satisfied, then turned to his wife. "I think that's the best we can do," he said, face unnaturally still. It made Lydia fidget uncomfortably. "Barbara?"

Barbara stared at her, eyebrows scrunched so tightly it looked like her forehead was scattered with little trenches. Lydia resisted the urge to duck her head and avert her eyes.

"You'll hate us if we don't let you, won't you?" she asked.

"I…no," Lydia admitted. "But…you know." She wanted to tell her that she trusted him, that he got her, and that she was starting to really get him, and that she just felt…okay around him. Like for once someone looked at her and liked what they saw, all of it. But Lydia wasn't a trustful creature, nor was she by any means one to express her innermost, most confusing emotions to others, so she didn't. "I…really like him."

As simplistically honest as that was, she still cringed a little at how little-girl it sounded. She wasn't asking her parents if Bobby could take her to the movies. She was telling two dead people she was going to release another one and hope he didn't blow them all to kingdom come out of spite.

Irony just seemed to have a thing for her.

"We're staying," Barbara told her, tight-lipped. "At least for a month. And we're not letting him out of our sight."

"But your tickets…"

"We have enough," she snapped, and Lydia knew that was going to be the end of it. Barbara's arms crossed so tightly it looked like they would never come undone. Then she let out a small, resigned sigh, so subtle Lydia hardly noticed. "…go get the groceries Delia wants first. I don't want her walking in to nag you while we're in this middle of this."

Lydia nodded, because she was feeling a little too horrible and tight-throated to speak, and fled the room.

They'd see. There was going to be a lot of screaming and cold shoulders and maybe explosions, but eventually they'd understand, and everything would go back to being okay.

And, she thought as she cruised smoothly down her driveway, reveling in the harsh momentum Delia used to have apoplectic fits over (_Going to break your neck going that fast!_), maybe they'd even like him. Maybe Beetlejuice would forgive them. Maybe they'd all form some kind of misshapen, oddly knit family.

Okay, that last one had just been funny.

She wondered, as she idly flew by house after house and, a few seconds later, blurred tree after tree, what Beetlejuice was even doing right now. Was he listening to his nonexistent music? Watching TV? Stress-eating food he didn't need? She almost smiled.

And then her pedal stopped working.

Her bike's sudden stop was too fast and too harsh for her to correct it, and she went toppling onto the street with an awful sense of déjà vu and the flash-quick feeling that something was very wrong.

He purple tights shredded as they came into contact with the granite, and her skin followed after. Her elbow came down sickeningly hard on the corner of the curb, sending a razor-sharp spasm shooting up her arm. Her other arm was bent at a funny angle, somehow threaded through two bars on her bike.

She lay there and for several seconds didn't even think to move, too stunned to even comprehend getting up. Then gradually the aching sting of her knees reached her brain, and her elbow's throbbing magnified, and she shifted.

"_Shit…_" she whispered to herself, a little amazed at her heart. It was thundering in her chest, pumping her full of adrenaline she didn't need. Very slowly, she tugged her arm out of her bike, relieved when she found it to be in relatively normal condition. The last thing she needed was to break it again. Delia might have been on to something after all…

"Lydia!"

Everything froze.

Very deliberately, she lifted her head. David waved at her cheerfully, jogging over to her from where he had been standing partially hidden by a tree. Her stomach plummeted and left her feeling surreally hollow.

"Man, you were going fast," he told her, tone clearly admiring. "I didn't think I was gonna be able to stop you."

Stop…her?

She slowly turned her head to look at her bike, feeling numb.

Lodged between the spokes of her front wheel was a short, heavy stick.

"Good aim, huh?" he said, noticing where her attention had gone. "I'm pretty lucky. All the way from over there, too."

She stared at him wordlessly.

His smile slipped a little. "What's up? Something wrong?"

And then she got control of her lungs.

"Are you _fucking insane_?"

Now he wasn't smiling. "What?"

She struggled to her feet, irritably kicking at her bike when her sweater caught on her pedal. David didn't even have the grace to look ashamed when she hissed a little at her knees, open and dripping blood down her leg, embedded with little pieces of gravel.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded. "My bike is all fucked up!"

He seemed to recover himself, and rolled his eyes a little. "Way to dramatize, Lyds. Chill out."

Goddammit, she should have known. He hadn't bothered her all week, of course he wasn't just going to suddenly get bored with her. She had just been so distracted…

He chose that moment to step unperturbedly forward and encircle her wrist with his short, stocky fingers, and she broke off mid-rabid snarl.

It suddenly occurred to her that they were standing next to acres and acres of mostly uninhabited woods, and the two of them were very, very alone.

Her body's response switched from _fucking kill him_ to _wait a second, back up_, and she regarded him warily. "…let go of my arm."

"No," he said blithely, turning away from her, toward the trees. "I need to talk to you. Come on, let's go over there…"

"David – "

He whirled on her, and she automatically flinched, because his face was suddenly _livid_.

"My name is _Darrell_," he spat at her.

Then he abruptly relaxed, expression serene again. "Woops. Sorry." He tugged her once in the direction of the tree line, and every single one of her instincts switched on like an alarm bell, screeching at her. _Don't go in the trees. Don't go in the trees_. She jerked her arm roughly back but he just held on tighter, turning to glare at her over his shoulder. "I thought I told you to chill out."

"Yeah, fuck _you,_" she hissed, and then, because her survival instincts were just a little stronger than her sense of dignity, she opened her mouth to the heavens and started to scream.

He backhanded her.

It was shocking, more shocking than in was painful, and it was more the loud _CRACK_ that shot through the frigidly still air that reduced her to silence than anything else.

He used her preoccupation to drag her a few steps closer. It didn't take her long to come back to herself and evolve to full-blown panic. She dug her heels into the dirt and used every ounce of her meager weight to lean away from him and heave in the other direction. He stumbled once, then jerked her off-balance with an irritable grunt and started pulling again.

She abandoned all pretenses now, clawing at his wrist in a primal display of raw desperation. He hissed, and then roughly captured both her flailing wrists.

She struggled with him for all of a second, and then kicked him sharply in the shin.

He swore and released her, and she bolted, sprinting back in the direction of the houses, she needed to get out of the trees and oh fuck oh fuck, she was going uphill.

She was almost, almost there when he tackled her, his superior weight making he go down with ridiculous ease. She hit the ground hard, breath whooshing out of her in one painful burst. _Fuck_. Her parents had offered to let her take karate when she was ten, _why the fuck hadn't she taken karate_ –

And then she felt his mouth, his fucking _mouth_, on the back of her neck, hot and heady and wet and working its way down, and all coherent thought left her mind. She screamed once, a short, high burst that exploded from her mouth automatically, and he crammed her face into the ground, fingers digging into her cheek.

It was hard to breathe like this but goddammit she was going to manage, because he was awkwardly pushing her shirt down over her shoulders. She sucked in a deep mouthful of air. "Be—"

He grabbed her hair and jerked her head up and kissed her, roughly mashing his mouth against hers and forcing her neck into a painful, unnatural angle.

She bit him. Hard.

Hard enough that a little bit of blood got in her mouth before he jerked away, and then twisted her hair spitefully, making her let out a brief cry of pain before she clamped down on herself because she wasn't going to give him any kind of satisfaction.

Darrell was panting, and she could feel his sweat against her back. "God, just – relax. You'll like it."

"Fuck you," she spat, and then, before he could stop her, "_BeetlejuiceBeetlejuiceBeetlejuice._"

Everything went suddenly silent, air shifting and taking on a tangible electric quality. Darrell went still. "What?" he asked, little boy voice confused and hilariously innocent.

Then his weight disappeared from her with a sick _SNAP_ and she heard him scream.

She rolled over just in time to see his leg break in half under his knee like a piece of bread, jeans bulging with protruding bones and soaking the snow underneath him red. His eyes flew to her face, wide and shocked and terrified. Her stomach heaved dryly, bile gathering in the back of her throat. She swallowed thickly, twice. "Beej," she called croakily.

He ignored her, or he didn't hear her, or he just didn't want to hear her, because Darrell was thrown against a tree, skull cracking and face going slack.

"_Stop!_"

He turned around then, face twisted and furious and achingly familiar, and his sparking eyes locked in on her own and froze there. She felt suddenly weak.

"Um…hey."

"Whaddo you fucking mean, _hey?_" he snarled, words coming out so fast they were hard to separately discern. "_What the fuck is this?_"

"Um. Um." It was so hard to think. She was shaking, large violent tremors that she couldn't control and it was weird, because she was okay, but she couldn't stop shaking. Shaking and gasping, these quick little breaths that left her feeling more light-headed than satisfied, and she couldn't seem to steady herself no matter how much she tried.

He waited for her to say something and then threw up his arms with a frustrated noise when she didn't, stalking forward and – _ohgodhewassobeautiful_.

"That's – that's Darrell," she said weakly.

"_WHO THE FUCK IS DARRELL?"_

She pointed at the crumpled form lying, disturbingly still, at the base of a gorgeous oak tree she was never going to look at the same way ever again, entire arm vibrating. "…he's Darrell." Then she crossed both arms across her chest in an effort to stop her body's involuntary quaking. It didn't help much, so she hunched her shoulders forward and focused on not throwing up instead.

"Since _when?_"

"I…I don't know," she whispered helplessly, a little lost now that he was within arm's reach, looming over her with his twisty lips and his stupid fucked up hair and –

She had just almost been raped.

It struck her then, really hit her, and she was helpless against the pathetic little catch in her breath almost-sob that usurped its way out of her throat and made Beetlejuice stop short.

She saw his expression shift, torn somewhere between dawning comprehension and still-tenacious rage, and she knew it was going to be easier for him to hold on to the rage because that was just what he did.

Then he twitched, this weird kind of arm-flinging gesture to vent his frustration that came accompanied with a strangled "_Fuck_," and he stepped forward and jerked her against him, enveloping her little frame with his arms.

This close to him, pressed into his earthy chest and feeling the slight bulge of his stomach pressing into her she couldn't help herself. Her body _quaked_, wracked with trembles of seismic proportions, shoulders jerking and shuddering, and she felt very, very close to hyperventilation. Beetlejuice was stiff against her, with an emotion she didn't know, or didn't understand, or something.

"Are you…fuck. You – you okay?" he asked, voice strained to its breaking point.

"I'm – fine," she gasped, face pressed into his chest and just. It was too much, everything was just too much. "I'm sorry," she blurted suddenly. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry – "

"Shut up."

So she did. And he held her.

And they stayed like that.

* * *

This chapter came out really short. .__x

I wanted to title it: In Which the Shining Knight Saves the Fair Maid from the Fucking Psycho, but it wouldn't let me. :(

…anyone ever had someone throw a stick into their bike wheel? My brother used to pull that shit on me all the time when we were little. Half my scars come from him.


	11. In Which No One Knows Their Part

Okay, I usually don't pimp, but this author demands pimping. Her name's Opal Lynn, and oh Jesus her Beetlejuice stories. They're hilarious, well thought out, and everyone's so in character it hurts. And she is seriously not getting enough pimpage. So spread it around.

* * *

"So how long has…_this_ been goin' on?"

Lydia pulled his jacket a little tighter around herself, ducking her head at the brisk wind. "A week or two. More or less. I mean, it was going on before, but it wasn't…bad. "

She felt him tense, felt the arm draped round her shoulders briefly freeze, then he relaxed, returning to his brisk up and down rubbing of her arm. She shivered a little, for reasons entirely separate from the cold, and he pulled her (somewhat redundantly she thought, but then maybe he knew her better than she gave him credit for) more tightly against his side.

He let out a long breath that smelled of moldy soil and something between static and ozone. "…fuck."

"Yeah," she said morosely. "I know."

They both turned their heads to contemplate the grimy pile of cloth and person lying across from them. He was twitching at regular intervals, which Lydia took as a good sign. He was definitely unconscious as fuck, but that was better than dead, because Lydia wasn't really sure what she'd do if she ended up inadvertently killing someone. Of course, he probably wasn't going to be running any marathons, seeing as Beetlejuice had broken two or so limbs and the chances of him having a big ass dent in his skull were pretty fair, buuuuut….she wasn't going to be losing any sleep over it. That was just what you got when you tried to rape people.

She had convinced Beetlejuice to let her lay him out and check him over (as in, flip him onto his back and poke his stomach to see if he would spurt blood out his ears). It had taken a lot more convincing for her to get him to cover up Darrel with his shirt (she'd threatened to take off her own, and she must have looked _really cold_ for Beetlejuice to stop her), because she was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that cold was bad for concussions.

Also the sight of Beetlejuice standing shirtless in the snow with nothing covering his little beer belly but his loose tie was hilarious.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, and his voice was again drenched in anger and resentment. It was still hard for her to believe herself when she came to the conclusion that she'd _hurt his feelings_.

Because seriously. What?

Her lips barely moved when she answered. "It wasn't your problem." That was the way it had always been, the way she'd assumed it always would be – she was her own problem.

He apparently disagreed. "You're so goddamn _stupid_."

She cringed away from him despite herself, and wow she really needed to work on that, this caring enough to let other people fuck over her self-esteem business. He was so – so disruptive to her life.

He paused in his rubbing to drag her back to him, which was probably his version of apologetic behavior. He tucked the top of her head under his chin and rested there. "Lyds? Come on. You know I didn't mean that."

"It was still a dick move," she muttered.

"Oh yeah? How d'you figure that?"

"Look, I didn't have any reason to trust you," she snapped, still feeling stung. "So _sorry_ I didn't pour my black little heart out."

He snorted, and she could feel the vibrations in his throat. It was simultaneously gross and sexy, in some weird roundabout way that really had no business being arousing in the first place. "You had plenty of reasons t' trust me."

"You threatened to kill me every time I so much as breathed the wrong way! Excuse me if I took that as receiving mixed signals, but you weren't doing much to help."

"I woulda thought my intentions were pretty clear after I started groping you," he said incredulously.

"No, when you mix groping with death threats it just makes me think you want to rape me, you ass."

"…I do want to rape you."

"I meant the bad way." And the unspoken _Darrel's way_ that hung heavy in the air was enough to throw them both into silence.

Her rear end was starting to hurt from sitting on the ground, and her back was voicing similar protests about the tree she was resting against. Plus her ass was wet with melted snow; that was uncomfortable even when it wasn't twenty degrees outside. She shifted, and felt Beetlejuice's teeth click together when she jostled his jaw. "Sorry," she apologized quickly.

"'s okay."

"What do we…_do_ with him?"

He looked at her sideways. "Dunno. You tell me."

"What do you mean, you tell – "

"Look," he interrupted. "I'm all for drowning Johnny over there like a puppy in a sack. I just figured you'd have a problem with that – "

"Yeah, I would – "

"So that leaves me blank," he finished. "You're supposed to be all smart and stuff, aren't you?"

"I don't suppose…we could just leave him at a hospital?" she asked gloomily. Yeah, that would work out fantastic. He'd probably scream her name bloody murder (he probably knew her middle one, too), and she'd get dragged in for questioning, and her parents would get suspicious, and Beetlejuice would be compromised…not to mention a rapist would be walking around free once they popped his knee back into place.

Beetlejuice snorted with laughter. "You're not even trying, are you?"

"Well excuse me for being distracted after sexual assault," she whipped out. And seeing the just-got-slapped-but-not-admitting-it tilt to his eyebrows she immediately regretted it. She scooted a little closer to him, swallowing at the utter awkwardness of the movement. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I just…weird."

"Yeah. Already said, 's okay."

She leaned a little into him, and his fingers twitched. It almost made her laugh; the idea that _she_ made _him_ nervous. She let out a long, tired, so tired breath. "…I'm going to take up kick-boxing."

"Oh. Yeah. That'll be fuckin' amazing, the four-foot terror."

"…you're horrible." She couldn't quite find it in her to get angry at him.

She got a flash of his pointy teeth. "Don't forget it."

They were silent for a little while longer.

"Police?" she suggested half-heartedly.

"What're you gonna say? You pulled some kung-fu shit on him?"

"…is it that unbelievable?"

She got a wheezy laugh in return, one that sounded very much like "_Hehehehehehehehe _– ow."

She cocked her fist threateningly when he started to open his mouth again. "I'll say I – pushed him off a building or something."

And then she'd have to explain why they were on top of a building in the first place, and why she'd pushed him, and why he probably had bits of tree bark in his skin, and why he was babbling about a crazy dude with crazy hair who made him fly through the air with a snap of his fingers – well. She might be able to pass that off with He's fucking crazy Officer, I swear, which was pretty believable, all things considering. Unless…

"Do you have fingerprints?"

He squinted at her. "…wut?"

Her head found itself dumped morosefully into her hands, and she groaned. This was so complicated. So stupidly, stupidly complicated, and was that Darrel's leg turning green?

"He's going to bleed to death," she moaned.

"Yeah, so?" She shot him a dirty look, because this was going in circles and fuck if it all wasn't so surreal, huddling in the snow with a dead man while contemplating the fate of a boy barely grown. Who had a kink for the word 'no', apparently.

She stared hard at the ground, where she could just barely make out a tiny animal track, white against white. It was amazing she hadn't scuffed it up. She curled her legs carefully around it.

She switched her gaze to the treetops, from which snow occasionally dropped down in wet clumps. She closed her eyes.

"I think I might be romantically interested in you. Just so you know."

His foot gave this spazzy little twitch, and suddenly he wasn't looking at her either. She swallowed thickly.

"…nah," he said finally. "That's the rape talking."

Her stomach jolted in her chest, and suddenly it was very very hard to get her eyes open. She paused a little at the sudden betrayal, curling in her chest like some kind of sharp-edged ribbon. For a brief second she considered just stalking off, because she didn't like that and the way it curled tighter when she tugged at it. But she didn't, because she knew him better than she liked to think she did, and there was something in what he'd said that she knew wasn't resentful, or immature, or just meant to hurt her out of retaliation.

She made him nervous.

So she straightened, feeling his arm go limp and drop away from her, and lifted her chin to stare him fully in the face. And it didn't really matter that she had no confidence whatsoever right now and the completely dispassionate, veiled look she was getting was doing all kinds of things to her nerves.

He kind of scared her. He scared her, but then he didn't, and she didn't know what to do about either situation. He was so much older than her, so foreign and sharp and confusing. And she was just her, and he was him, and none of this really made any fucking sense so what was the point in trying to figure it out?

"No," she said bluntly. "I'm pretty sure I am."

His lip twitched, and she could just picture the next thing that was going to come sliding out his mouth, slick and curled with acid. So she did the only logical thing she could think of, and cupped his broad face in her little hands and thrust her neck forward.

She missed, actually, and rammed their noses together, and if that wasn't humiliating enough he tried to jerk back and she had to hold him there, short nails digging into his skin. Her brain had exploded into a thousand tiny little sirens, all cringing with embarrassment. She ignored it, and the way her stomach was trying to curl in on itself and either choke her to death or just disappear, as best as she could.

She found his lips after some effort, because her eyes were closed again to ensure she didn't just die, and _that_ was when he settled down, stopped moving and just stayed there and generally made her job a whole lot easier.

There really wouldn't be any general point in pretending she knew what the hell she was doing, so she just let herself be the awkward little girl she was, shyly brushing her lips sideways across his and back again, Eskimo touches with her breath swooshing out across his closed lips. She risked a peek at him from under her lashes and almost swallowed her own tongue when she found him staring down at her, eyes heavy and just watching her, utterly still.

"Come on," she mumbled at him, and now that her throat was working she found it was a lot easier to talk than to feel like a dirty pervert molesting someone twice her size, because _he was doing this on purpose, wasn't he?_ And here he was accusing _her _of sending mixed signals, the smarmy bastard. "Come on you stupid crazy fat moldy old fart – "

"OH, if you say so."

She actually reeled back to stare at him, because one: what the fuck, and two: who the hell did he think he was sing-songing at her while she flailed in her own embarrassment he HAD been doing it on purpose the _smarmy bastard_.

And then he heaved her, quite happily, onto his lap like she weighed nothing and she was on his crotch and HE HAD A HARD ON what what what what – "

She let out this embarrassing squeak-squeal, and that was the last thing she got out of her mouth because it was suddenly covered by his.

And it was nothing like the way she'd kissed him, and it was nothing even like the way he'd kissed her in her bedroom, it was forceful and dominating and she couldn't keep up. His hands were fisting in her shirt and rubbing at her back and his jacket was sliding dangerously low on her shoulders and wait where the fuck was his mouth going – oh, on her neck, of course, _what the fuck?_ Then he was back again, prying relentlessly at her lips with his tongue and oh, yeah, she remembered who kissed like this.

Her hands had flown up to his chest before she could even remember she had them, and then she was shoving at him and twisting her face around under the sudden suffocating pulse of her own panic, so strong choking her and she _really _hoped that wasn't her keening, really, she did. And she kind of liked it, maybe, but fuck fuck fuck, slow down –

And he stopped, and he leaned back against the tree, and he just looked at her.

And smirked a tiny bit.

She exploded.

"YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!"

"Yeah, and you were falling for it too – "

"_I hate you!_" she shrieked at him. She scrabbled off his lap and started to scoot, quite speedily, away from his general direction, and he just raised his eyebrows at her like she was doing something somewhat funny. _Fucker._ What, what the what? _What._

"Lyyydiaaa…"

"You sick old pedophile fuck – "

"Oh COME ON, we're back to that?"

"We're back to – FUCK YOU, don't you dare touch me."

She automatically threw her arms out in front of her as a shield, and something came very close to clicking into perspective. Almost. Or maybe it was the way his face was suddenly void of all humor, because a serious Beetlejuice meant this was serious shit and he might have a point maybe.

"Get it?" he asked, none too gently, but then again none to I'M-GOING-TO-ROUGHLY-MOLEST-YOU either.

"Get _what?_" she half-mewled. She was going to go insane. She really was. Her mind was too open and impressionable and she was undoubtedly going to end up as a lonely old cat lady who wore stripes all the time and killed snakes with her walker, _because of him._

And there he was again with his serious face and his serious mood. "That's what it's gonna be like."

"That's what _what?_" She was probably missing something obvious here, but, but. How was she supposed to think straight, really? "Stop – stop _attacking_ me."

"Then stop trying to jump my bones. I'm not some kind of fucking superhero," he told her easily, and, and –

Oh – ohhh. She got it.

But still –

"I didn't say I wanted to do it doggy style on the ceiling, you freak, I just _stop laughing at me_."

"No no no no no no, you make it too easy."

She ended up throwing her shoe at him as hard as she could, a brave decision considering she was about a second away from frostbite. It filled her with deep, deep satisfaction when it clonked him full on in the head.

"OW."

"You. You're a jerk."

He held his hands up defensively, face twisting with disbelief. "Look, I'm no therapist, but I'd say the last thing you need right now is my tongue up your – "

Her other shoe somehow found its way to its fallen comrade.

And that left her standing barefoot in ankle-deep snow, dammit. She really needed to think these things out.

In the midst of her supreme smugness she comprehended what he'd just said, and that gave her pause.

…oh. Guess he did care about her.

Huh.

…and meanwhile, Darrel bled patiently on the ground.

She blew out an exasperated breath. "Okay, our relationship aside – "

"I should tell you now that I'm allergic to commitment talks. I mean, I like you an' everything babes, but – "

"—what are we going to do with him? Seriously."

"Yes, do tell."

And the atmosphere cracked in half, and Beetlejuice bit his tongue between his teeth, and Lydia cringed like a chastised child.

Juno stared at them coldly, tobacco smoke curling in twin trails from her nostrils.

* * *

"She's been gone a long time."

Adam glanced at his wife where she resided in Lydia's window seat, legs crossed neatly and chest angled to the frosted glass. She had been staring out it for a little over an hour; she had paced for twenty minutes before that. He would have comforted her, but Barbara was the kind of woman that just became increasingly more antisocial and antitouch the higher her stress was. Adam was laid back; he wasn't insane.

So instead he shrugged a little. "It's a long ride.

Then the air abruptly burst into a million colored facets and they popped out of existence in a twist of kaleidoscope shapes and the smell of chlorine.

They came back in a tiny clearing blanketed in snow a little ways from the road, pretty and picturesque and looking like a train had exploded in it.

Adam stumbled, caught himself, and automatically held out an arm to catch Barbara. He felt a little shaken, sick; teleportation had never really agreed with him. It had something to do with dimensions twisting, he knew, but he'd never bothered to learn the specifics. He straightened a little clumsily, glancing around.

He perceived three things with quick succession.

1) There was blood on the ground, and Lydia was bleeding.

2) Juno stood plain as day across from her, the flap in her neck fluttering slightly with the volume of her enraged breath.

3) Beetlejuice was there.

…okay, he said he'd have an open mind, but no. Just no.

Barbara was three steps ahead of him.

Quite literally; she was stalking over to Beetlejuice with the clear intention to rip his spleen out through his bellybutton. Adam forgot for a moment that this man could probably brain him with his tongue and started to join her.

"Stop it," Juno snapped, almost offhandedly. She was standing with her arms crossed, crimson-tipped fingers clutching her long filtered cigarette with almost manic strength. Barbara's head snapped around towards her, mouth twisting, and Adam quickly stepped forward to restrain her before they ended up being exorcised.

And then he tripped over something, and he glanced down and his stomach nearly dropped the hell out of his body, because he'd just stepped on a young boy who looked barely Lydia's age, and some of his bones were saying hello.

He looked up, and it took his second glance at Lydia to take in the stripey jacket she was clutching around her shoulders, and that her hair was a disheveled mess, and that she and Beetlejuice were standing extremely close.

His daddy senses were tingling.

"What's going on?" Barbara demanded, head swiveling back and forth like a pendulum. "Lydia, what's going on?"

His wifey senses were tingling too, so he stepped up behind her and brushed her shoulder. She glanced at him, eyes big and hard and scared, and then tunneled back onto Juno. "_You_ know what's going on."

"Don't start with me," Juno warned, taking a hard suck of her cigarette. "I swear you people attract legal screwups like flies."

Lydia shifted a little nervously, tiny frame dwarfed in Beetlejuice's jacket. Her teeth were chattering, lips tinted blue.

"Okay, wait," Adam started, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye. "Can we move this someplace warmer?"

Juno glared at him for the sheer audacity of directly addressing her. "Usually I'd decline just to see you squirm, but we _do_ need someplace more private." She threw a contemptuous glance at Lydia. "Not that a group of adults and two mangled children in the woods is suspicious."

"Um," Lydia started. "My room's pretty…"

Juno snapped her fingers before the words were halfway out her mouth.

When his body was done twisting itself in half Adam found himself on Lydia's carpet, ass over head. A quick headcount assured him that everyone was accounted for. He quickly sat up, absently snapping his ankle back into place.

The boy had been dumped unceremoniously into Lydia's desk chair, neck lolling limply over the back. Barbara was picking herself up from the ground beside him, shooting venom across to the room to Juno with her eyes. Lydia looked around at them all silently for a moment, legs bloody and shirt torn and generally just looking exhausted, then shrugged and headed over to her bed. She burrowed underneath her bedspread and wrapped it around herself, leaving her head free to peek out at the world. Adam tried very, very hard not to notice that Beetlejuice floated after her, hovering lazily by her elbow.

"…put a shirt on," Barbara said finally.

Beetlejuice looked at her, a slimy grin already unfurling. "Now why would I deprive a lovely gal like you of such a fine display of pure, unadulterated man?"

Lydia elbowed the underside of his thigh.

…shit.

"Everyone shut up," Juno commanded, rubbing at her eyes. When she was done she fixed her molten gaze on Lydia. "You."

"We should really do something about Darrel," she said, appearing utterly unfazed. "Just saying."

Juno glanced at him, tongue hanging limply from the side of his mouth and supplying a solid line of drool down his chin.

"He's fine," she said dismissively, waving a hand in his direction. "I've temporarily stopped time for his body. You, on the other hand. _What is wrong with you, you silly girl?"_

Lydia blinked. "Well, there's a good chance I have tourettes."

Adam stared at her in bewilderment as Beetlejuice guffawed. The girl he knew would never purposefully backtalk someone with so much apparent power.

"Can someone make him put a shirt on?" Barbara demanded frustratedly. Lydia and Beetlejuice's proximity seemed too distracting for her to handle.

"Hey, if you're tryin' to tell me something – "

"Shut up," Lydia and Juno snapped in perfect synchronization.

Adam closed his eyes, and wondered why he still got headaches even though he was dead. Surely dead people weren't supposed to get headaches.

"Who's this kid?" he asked, pointing at…Darien, whatever his name was.

"Darrel," Lydia said offhandedly, examining one scraped ankle with interest.

"It doesn't matter who he is!" Juno bellowed. "Do any of you realize the repercussions of this?"

"We don't know what 'this' is!" Barbara shrieked back. She was so pretty when she went all rabid. "I want an explanation, now!"

Juno ignored her entirely. "_So_ much paperwork, you stupid asshole, there are _legal. Ways_. To watch after mortals, you can't just decide to step in every time one of them gets raped – "

"What?"

"We have _contracts_, you moron, and why the hell are you even out in the first place?"

"No, WHAT?"

"Hey, if anyone's interested, Lyds is bleeding an' shit," Beetlejuice yawned, peering at his filthy fingernails.

"_What was that about rape?"_

"Mrs. Maitland, stop screaming, or I'll put you on probation."

"Why is Lydia bleeding?" Adam asked blankly.

Beetlejuice looked lazily up at him, green eyes level and gleaming, then tilted his head in Darrel's direction. "Ask Sunshine over there."

Juno threw up her arms as Adam opened his mouth, clearly incensed. "I don't have time for this," she snarled and, before anyone could move, snagged the cuff of Beetlejuice's pants.

There was a crack, and a hissed whirlwind of spitted curses via the captured, and then the air-pressure suddenly skyrocketed and Adam automatically dropped onto his knees, one hand reaching blindly for Barbara as his eyes were involuntarily forced shut.

And then suddenly it lifted, and everyone lifted their heads cautiously, and it couldn't have been more apparent that Juno had left and taken Beetlejuice with her.


End file.
